B-^ 




^/. 




r 



WORi) OF GOD OPENED. 



ITS 



INSPmATION, ^km\ AID INTERPRETATION 
CONSIDERED AND ILLUSTRATED. 



v\ 



i 



By BRADFORD K. PEIRCE, D.D. 



** Open thou mine eyes, 
That I may behold wondrous things out of thy law." 

"Qui ha;ret in litera haeret in cortice.'" 



NEW YORK: HUNT &» EATON, 

CINCINNA TI: CRANSTON ^ STOWE. 

1889. 






EnteFed according to Act of (Congress, in the year 1868, by 

CAKLTON & PORTER, 

in the Cierk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the 
Southern District of New York. 



ly Tw.7is.flsP 



PREFACE. 



rriHE writer of this volume has sought to place in 
the hands of young students, and interpreters of 
the Bible who are not familiar with the original 
tongues in which the Holy Scriptures were written, 
or favored with an easy access to the treasures of 
sacred criticism which are constantly accumulating, 
such evidences of the authenticity, genuineness, and 
general purity of the English version of the Old and 
New Testaments, arising out of its history and the 
searching examinations to which it has been submitted, 
that they may open it with confidence to discover in 
its revelations the mind of the Spirit. He has sought, 
also, to set forth and illustrate the nature of its 
inspiration, t^e most obvious preliminary studies and 
preparations for a safe interpretation of its contents, 
and the most important rules for the guidance of the 
interpreter in his work. The writer has not proposed 
fully to enter upon the argument on which rests the 
confirmed judgment of evangelical Christians upon 



4 PREFACE. 

these topics, but to indicate and illustrate the various 
steps in it, so that the Bible student will be enabled 
to have a clear comprehension of its nature and force ; 
and, at his leisure, to turn to the abundant authorities 
crowding our Christian literature for an exhaustive 
examination of these questions. 

The author has sought constantly to keep in view 
the great class of teachers just now awakened to 
earnest inquiry as to the means of meeting the serious 
requisitions made upon them as interpreters of the 
word of God to the children of our land, and to 
prepare his volume in such a w^y as best to aid them 
in their work. 

He has availed himself of such sources of informa- 
tion as he could secure in the various branches of 
biblical criticism involved in his work, and has ren- 
dered credit to them in the body of the volume. 
Special aid has been derived from the Hermeneutical 
Manual of Dr. Fairbairn, and from the admirable 
works of the same author upon Prophecy and Typol- 
ogy. Valuable suggestions have been gleaned from 
Alford's Prolegomena to his Greek Testament, and 
his interesting work under the title of How to Study 
the New Testament; from last's General Introduc- 
tion to the Gospels ; from Prof Murphy's Introduction 
to his Commentary upon Genesis ; from Schaff 's 
History of the Christian Church; from Westcott's 



PREFACE. 5 

invaluable Introduction to tlie Study of the New 
Testament, and his History of the Canon ; from 
Home; from Davidson; from Cowper's Apocryphal 
Gospels; and from the Boyle Lectures for 1866 on 
Christ and Christendom by Plumptre. Rev. David 
Dobie has written a strong, original, and sprightly 
work upon interpretation, entitled "A Key to the 
Bible ;" but its rules of interpretation are unneces- 
sarily multiplied, and nearly all of them singularly 
tend to elaborate from Scripture one modern system 
of theology. Its illustrations have been of great 
service to the writer. Prof. M'Lelland's work upon 
the Canon and Interpretation of the Scriptures has 
been laid under contribution for the same purpose; 
as also Gaussen upon the Canon. A scientific and 
comprehensive work upon the Hermeneutics of the 
New Testament by a Dutch clergyman, Dr. Doedes, 
has been consulted with profit ; and a late English 
work by J. Radford Thomson upon Symbols. We 
owe, and are happy to express, special obligation to 
Dr. Goulburn for his rich little treatise upon the 
Devotional Study of the Bible. Much assistance has 
been lendered by the Hand-Book of the Bible of 
Angus. The works of Stanley and Milman, and the 
various Biblical Encj'^clopsedias and Dictionaries, have 
been examined, as their valuable contents have ofiered 
aid in the work. 



6 PREFACE. 

We trust that our labor, which has from first to 
last been a labor of love, will not be in vain, but that 
our little volume may become a guide to many young 
explorers among the hidden mines and treasures of 
Holy Scripture. 

B. K. Peircb. 
Riverside Parsonage, 
Randall's Island, March, 1868. 



CONTENTS. 



^ •» 



CHAPTER I. 

THE BIBLE. 

God revealed by Inspired Men, and by an Inspired Book — In 
Harmony with the Creation of the World — Light first, and then the 
Sun — Written Scriptures commence with Moses — Like the Sun and 
Stars, they become permanent Sources of Eevelation — The same 
Truth is illustrated in the New Testament Scriptures — Inspired 
Men first, and then Inspired Books — The Holy Spirit closed the 
Canon — Error of Edward Irving — Folly of Spiritualists — The 
"Inner Light" never superior to the Bible — Bible only Eule of 
Faith — Necessity for an infallible Rule Page 13 

CHAPTER H. 

INSPIRATION. 

God the Author, Men the Writers, of the Bible — Oldest Volume 
in the World — Various Authors and Styles — Teachings of all Har- 
monize — Writers were not acquainted with the Sciences — Used a 
simple, figurative, and poetic Form of Expression adapted to all 
Ages — They claim to be Inspired — Established by their Veracity 
— Human Authorship impossible from nature of Revelations — Words 
not necessarily Inspired — Dr. Schaff's view — Verbal Inspiration 
would require a constant Miracle — Varied forms of Inspiration 
illustrated — Alford's view of Inspiration — The Scripture view of 
Inspiration by Prof. Murphy 19 

CHAPTER HL 
THE canon: its genuineness. 

Is our English Bible the word of God Revealed? — Original Lan- 
guage of the Old Testament — Apocrypha — Care taken by the Jews 
to preserve the Purity of the Scriptures — Philo and Josephus — 



8 CONTENTS. 

Samaritan Pentateuch — Spread of the Greek Language over Bible 
Lands — Jews in Egypt — The Septuagiut — This Version was used 
by Christ — The Syriac or Peshito Version — Italic — Origen and his 
Version — Jerome — Tlie Vulgate — Its gradual introduction into 
the Koman Church — The first book printed — Declared infallible 
by the Council of Trent — Different Editions of it — Various Versions 
of the Scriptures — New Testament Canon — First Oral Communica- 
tions from Inspired Men — Many Eecords were made, all but the 
Four Gospels have disappeared — Matthew — Characteristics of his 
Gospel — Mark — His Epistle written under the Sanction of Peter — 
Evidently the Gospel of an Eye-witness — Luke writes under the 
direction of Paul — Eesident of Antioch — Sources of his Gospel — 
Whence account of the Nativity derived — John wrote last — Call 
for his Gospel in the false views of Christ prevalent in the Churches 

— A marvelous Book, when it is recollected its Human Author was 
a F^isheruian — Paul's Epistles — Peter affirms them to be Inspired — 
Testimony of Papias to the Gospels - Irenaeus — TertuUian — Justin 
Martyr — The S} riac Version — Origen — Pamphilius — Eusebius — 
Constantine the Great orders fifty Copies of the Septuagint to be 
prepared by Eusebius and circulated among the Churches — Some 
Books of the New Testament for a while held in suspense — Apocry- 
phal Books of the New Testament — Use of them — Character of them 

— First English Version by Wiclif — First printed Version by Tyn- 
dale — Sufierings and Martyrdom of Tyndale — Fate of his Work — 
Edition by Joim liogers — Coverdale's Bible — Effect of circulating 
Bible in England — Fronde's opinion of Tyndale's Version — Douay 
Version — Martin Luther — Influence upon Biblical Criticism — Ger- 
man Version — The Authorized English Version — Effect of Revival 
of Letters upon Biblical Criticism — Fears at first entertained — 
Olshausen — Bengel — Fears entirely removed — Nature of Varia- 
tions — Prof. Norton upon Parity of Text Page 31 

CHAPTER IV. 

LNTERPRETATION : GENERAL OBSERVATIONS. 

Hermeneutics — Office of Biblical Interpfetation — Peculiarities 
of the Bible rendering its interpretation difficult — Why was it 
given ia this Form? — Analogy with Human Life — Dr. Schaff on 
the Character of the Bible — Locke on things difficult to be under- 
stood — Wonderful things in Nature hidden from our sight — Diffi- 
culty and Mystery add to the interest of Scripture — Exertion 
required to obtain the Treasures of Nature — Hidden Truths of 
Scripture — Bible presents Facts and Principles, but does not make 



CONTENTS. 9 

Moral Applications — Distinction between Attention and Thought — 
Fuilurt! in Sunday-schools — Devotional Thought — The whole Bible 
should be studied — Christ in the whole Bible — Eevelation Pro- 
gi-essive — Dr. Chalmers upon Progress in Moral Consciousness — 
Progress in the New Testament — Olshausen upon Unity and Prog- 
ress in Scripture — Locke on reading a Book of Scripture through 
at a sitting — Sacred Writers sometimes state tlieir object — Beauty 
and Power of Scripture lost when taken from its connections — Each 
Gospel has a Character of its own — Scripture is not a Revelation of 
Science — Dr. Stowe on the unscientific Character of the Bible — 
Folly of interpreting Genesis as a Treatise upon Geology — Common- 
sense an interpreter of the Bible — True Science cannot harm the 
Bible — Tlie Bible is not a "Body of Divinity " — Different Truths 
are taught in different places — Goulburn's illustration of this from 
Nature — Error of Kationalists and Uuiversalists — Interpreter not 
Responsible for what God says — Dr. Doedes upon this irresponsi- 
bility — Error of early Interpreters — Fanciful Interpretations — 
Reformation changed this — Illustrations of Ancient Interpretation 
— Historico-Grammatical Interpretation Page 68 

CHAPTER V. 

PRELIMINARY STUDIES. 

Study of Ancient Languages — Importance of a Knowledge of 
Biblical Geography — Renan — Hibbard and Vincent — Effect of 
Pilgrimages to the Holy Land — Dean Stanley's Account of the 
Vicinity of Hebron — Works upon Bible Geography — Value in the 
interpretation of Prophecy — The Cities of Bashan — Rev. J. L. 
Porter in Bashan — Present appearance of the Country — John L. 
Stephens in Petra — Fulfillment of Prophecy — Most interesting 
reading for the Young — Customs and Manners of the East — Sir S. 
W. Baker — Song of Solomon — Parables — Sitting at Table — Break- 
ing of Bread — Symbols — The Ceremonial Law — Symbols carried 
to Extremes — Symbolical Numbers — Natural Symbols — Animal 
Symbols — Jerusalem and Babylon — Earthly Royalty — The Vin- 
tage aid Harvest — Harps, Keys, and Book — The Bride — Bat- 
tle of Armageddon — Symbolical Acts — Marriage of Prophet to 
Prophetess — Symbols of Hosea and Ezekiel — Symbols should 
be interpreted with care — Must be in sympathy with the Sacred 
Writers — Hagenbach on inward interest — Dr. Paulus — Why 
BO little interest in the Bible? — Man needs the Holy Spirit — 
Illustrated by Sun Dial — The Spirit acts through the Human 
Mind 100 



10 CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER VI. 

RULES OF LNTERPIIETATION. 

Rule I — The Obvious Meaning of the Words the True Oue — 
Bengel on holding to the Text — Mehinchthon on the Sense of 
Scripture — Luther's view — Writers, humble, open, and sincere. 
Eeuaark 1. When an Impossibility seems to be asserted, it is not to 
be taken literally — Illustrations of this — The Body and Blood of 
Christ in the Sacrament — How to know a figurative Expression — 
"Buried with him in Baptism." Remark 2. The Meaning must 
not contradict our Moral Sense — Figurative Precepts — "Many wad^ 
Sinners" — What the Apostle teaches in reference to this — "The 
Wicked ?7ia6^e for tile Day of Evil" — Nothing Contradictory to our 
Moral Convictions. Remark 3. Anything Contradictory to Uni- 
versal Experience must be Modified. Re. nark 4. Poetry and 
Prophecy must not be interpreted literally. Rule II. The Mean- 
ing of the Words must be taken in accordance with the Usagee 
of Speech at the time they were Uttered — Changes in our own 
Language — Bearing our own and others' Burdens — The Power of 
Christ resting upon one — Hebraisms — Thmgs said to be done when 
attempted — One who Occasions an Act said to do it — Difficult 
things said to be Impossible — Passages referring Human Acts to 
God — Names of Parents used for Descendants — Relatives called 
Brothers. Rule HI. By the Use of Parallel Passages the Bible 
should be made its own Expositor — Importance of Reference Bible 
• — Bishop Horsley on comparison of Scripture with Scripture — True 
meaning of Doctrines thus Discovered — Error of Jews — Must 
compare like Terms — Import of the term Baptize — How to use 
Parallel Passages — Scripture Terms often have Different Significa- 
tions — Gospel Writers Supplement each other — The "Strait 
Gate" — Context must be carefully examined — The Messianic 
Psalms — No Doctrine should be Built up on Separate Clauses of 
Scripture — The Prodigal Son and the Address to Nicodemus — 
Dying in Adam, Living in Clirist — The strongest meaning not 
always the correct one — Perverted Texts — Scripture distinctly 
presents both Human and Divine Ncttnre of Christ. Rule IV. All 
Scripture must be interpi-eted in Harmony with the Analogy of 
Faith — All apparent discrepancies must be harmonized in accord- 
ance with this Rule — False foundation of Papal Purgatory — Pas- 
sages referring to God after the manner of Men — Why God is thus 
Bpoken of — " Upon this rock I will build my Church " — " Covering 
it muUitude of Sins" — Scripture Difficulties no occasion for Dis- 



CONTENTS. 11 

eonrageraent — Abundant answers to all Difficulties — Never give 
an uusatisfactory Answer — Dean Alford upon Discrepancies of the 
New Testament — Ilenry Rogers upon the same. Eule V. The 
Spiritual Meaning is to be earnestly Sought After — Bible given for a 
Special Purpose — God teaches some Lesson in every portion — 
Error of Ernesti and Grotius — Westcott on Spiritual Interpretation 
— The view of Home Page 124 

CHAPTER yn. 

INTERPRETATION OF PARAJ3LE, POETRY, AND PROPHECY, 

Principal Parables delivered in the last year of onr Lord's Life — 
Distinguishing marks of his Parables — Keasons for using them — 
View of Tholuck — Aid in rejuembering Discourses — Powerfully 
impressed the Truth — Used to vail Truth, because it had been 
Neglected — Analogous to all Clirist's Work — Mr. Gladstone's view 
of the Parables — Christ supreme in them — First Eule: Must fully 
Understand the Parable in all its parts — Second Rule: Discover 
from the context the Exact Truth to be Illustrated — Lisco on the 
Kernel of the Parable — Lesson of the Parables in the fifteenth of 
Luke — Parable of the Eich Fool — Of the Householder and his 
Laborers — Third Eule: The separate parts of the Parable should 
not be considered out of their relation to the Story — Apt to overdo 
in Interpretation — Illustrated from Trench — Much of the Bible 
Poetic — Easily remembered — Sir Patrick Hume — Psalms sung in 
all Times -- They are to be interpreted according to the Laws of 
Elietoric — A Doctrinal Statement not to be built up on Figurative 
Language — Illustrations from Psalms — Literal rendering of some 
shown to be Absurd — To be interpreted in sympathy with the feel- 
ings of the Psalmist — Poetry of the Imagination and of the Affec- 
tions — The Times and Circumstances of their Compot>ition throw 
light upon their Interpretation — Dr. Townsend's Arrangement — 
Illustration from Stanley's History of the Jewish Church — Parallel- 
ism of the Psalms, Synonomous, Antithetic, Synthetic — The Vin- 
dictive Psalms not expressions of Personal Wrath — The Songs of 
the Persecuted of all Ages — Dr. Park's Illustration from the late 
War — Proverbs and Ecclesiastes are Divine Eepositorie? of ^Moral 
Maxims — Solomon's Song — Isaac Taylor's View — Prophecy 
abounds in the Bible — Illustrative Events s;iid to be the Fulfill- 
ment — Eachel weeping — Calling out of Egypt — History fulfilled 
Prophecy — Prophet no idea of Time — Jesus did not appeal to 
Figures — Prophecies of New Testament — Prophecy not History — 
Hour of Christ's second coming not Revealed — Irving's Error — Dr 



12 CONTEXTS. 

Cumniiug — "What the Bible teaches in reference to the End of the 
World — Prophecy a profitable Study — A grand Epic — Dr. Schatf' a 
View Page 167 

CHAPTER Vm. 

THE BIBLE IN THE WOKLD's LITERATURE. 

Never before so widely Circulated — Bitter attack made upon it — 
Foes under the garb of Friends — Object of Attack, Christ and God's 
Word — We have no occasion for anxiety — the Bible has gained 
from these attacks — Its literature prodigious — Compared with 
Shakspeare — The latter owes much to the Bible — Gray's Elegy 
compared with the Twenty-third Psalm — Henry Stephanus on 
Psalms — John von Mueller — Alexander von Humboldt — Goethe — 
Its hold upon the most powerful Minds — Rousseau — Coleridge — 
Carlyle — Bishop Butler — Wilberforce — Webster — Sir Francis Ba- 
con — Milton — Newton — Lord Erskine — Guizot — Talleyrand — 
No other Book can take the place of the Bible — Such a Book cannot 
die— Walter Scott's Bible Motto 207 



THE 



WORD OF GOD OPENED. 



> ^•» 



G 



CHAPTER I. 

THE BIBLE. 

OD revealed himself and liis will, at first, to man by m- 
spired men ; " lioly men of God spake as they ^^^ revealed 
were moved by the Holy Ghost." ^ Afterward he men and by 

an inspired 

caused these revelations to be gathered into an in- ^°^* 
spired book : " All Scriptm-e is given by inspiration of God." ' 
This course is in wonderful harmony with the di- in harmony 

with the cie- 

vineeconomy in the creation of the world. Light world. °^ *^''* 
was formed upon the first day ; " in the beginning . . . God 
said, Let there be light." ^ This light was diffused through 
chaotic nature, emanating from no local or material fountains : 
" and God saw the light that it was good." It was not until 
the fom'th day that these floods of light were collected into 
suns and fixed stars, and became ever after the divinely- 
appointed sources of illumination. " And God said. Let there 
be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day 
from the night . . . and the evening and the morning were 
the f( urth day." * 
» 2 Peter 1, 21. '2 Tim. Ill, 16. « Gen. 1, 1, 3. * Gen. 1, 14-19. 



14 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 

For twenty-five hundred years, until the time of Moses, 
Written Scrip- reliofious lijjcht was diflFused and faint, kindled by 

tures com- o C3 i ^ 

Moses. ^^^*^ direct communications of God to favored indi- 
viduals; but in his day God began to cause permanent lights, 
in the form of written Scriptures, to take theu* lasting places 
in the moral finnament, to shed their divine beams upon 
human hearts, and to " divide the light from the darkness." 
Like the sun and stars, they have held their places unmoved, 
These lights Constantly shedding forth their light over the 

are perma- 
nent, origin, decay, and destruction of human govern- 
ments and the proudest works of man : " Heaven and earth 
shall pass away," but these "words" of divine revelation 
" shall not pass away." ^ 

After the same analogy, the Scriptures of the New Testa- 
The same mcnt w^cre given. God sj^ake first by inspired 

ti-uth illus- 

tinted in the yhqyi and by dii'cct communications. The prom- 
New Testa- -^ •»■ 

tures. ise of the former covenant was, "In the last 

days (the times of the Messiah) I will pour out of my Spirit 
upon all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall 
prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your 
Prophecy of old. men dream dreams ; and on my servants and 

the Messiah's 

times. on my handmaidens I will pour out in those 

days of my Spirit, and they shall prophesy ;" ® that is, they 
shall declare the revelations of God — the Gospel — under the 
immediate inspiration of the Holy Ghost.'' This promise 
was literally fulfilled. At first, upon all that believed, 

» Matt xxlv, 35. • Acts ii, 17, la 

T See Introduction to Study of Holy Scriptures, by Dr. Goulbum, Article B, 
In Appendix. 



THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 15 

miraculous powers of speaking or specific revelations of 
truth from the Holy Ghost were bestowed in- _ . , 

•' This proph- 

discriminately, as upon the company of beUevers ^^^ 
at Pentecost, and afterward ® upon the Roman centurion and 
the company collected in his house ; ® upon the disciples 
scattered by persecution from Jerusalem/" and apparently 
wherever the apostles first introduced the preaching of the 
Gospel. The virgin daughters of Philip the evangelist were 
endowed with this divine gift," and Priscilla united with 
her husband Aquila, then in Athens, driven by persecution 
from Rome, in expounding " the way of God more i)ertectly " 
to the eloquent Apollos, a Jew of Alexanch'ia, himself mighty 
in the HebrcAv Scriptures." 

But by divine inspiration this diffused light was collected 
into permanent orbs. God no longer made per- collected in a 

pennaneiit 

sonal revelations of truth to individuals' minds, fon", 
but directed his chosen instruments to embody, under the 
guidance of the Holy Spirit,*' such an expression of his truth 
as he desired to have made to the world. He closed him- 
self the work of inspired revelation with the solemn words, 

"If any man shall add unto these things, God The iioiy Spir- 
it closed the 

shall add unto him the plagues that are written canon. 
in this book; and if any man shall take away from the words 
ol the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part 
out of the book of life, and out of the holy city, and from 
the tilings which are written in this book." ** 

In overlooking this truth, so iu harmony ^ith the oivinG 

• Acts 11, 4; iv, 31. » Acts x, 44-46. " Acts xl, 19, 21. >' Acts xxl, 9. 
»a Acts xriil, 24-26. »3 jyhn xlv, 26. »•» Kev. xxii, IS, 19. 



16 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 

processes in the natural world, taught in the Scripturea 

themselves, and confirmed by the history of the Church, the 

eloquent and devoted Edward Irvine, and his 

Error of_ Ed- ^ *=' 

ward Irving. sincere but misguided followers, in England, 
turned the worship of the sanctuary into a babel of unmean- 
ing sounds, and blasj^hemously attributed to that Spirit who 
brought order out of chaos, the awful and insane jargon of 
tongues which drove every rational worshiper from the house 
of God. 
The same condemnation must be declared against those in 
modern times, of a coarser mold, less scholarly, 

folly of "Spir- ' ' •'' 

ituaiists g^j^^ £^j, Yqss pious, (however sincere some may be, 

and however bewildered by strange physical phenomena, the 
laws of which are not clearly understood,) who suppose that 
they have, or pretend that they have, communication with 
the world of spirits. They are self-deceived, or their minds 
are perverted by the devil. God does not reveal his truth in 
this way, " for God is not the author of confusion, but of 
peace." ** 

This view of divine truth is opposed to the doctrine of 
The "inner those who liold that any "inner light" with 

lip:ht" not '' ° 

B^bie! ^^^ which they are favored can take the place of 
the Bible as a rule of life. The Holy Spirit cannot deny 
himself; and having spoken harmoniously through a long lino 
of chosen men, and having himself closed the canon of iu- 
spiration, he will not contradict this revelation in the hearts 
of believers. " Thy word," said the Psalmist more than 
twenty-eight hundred years ago, before even the Old Testa- 

" 1 Corinthians xiv, 38. 



THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 17 

ment Scriptures had been closed, " is a lamp unto my feet, 
and a light unto my path." *^ 

The Bible, not as explained by commentators, or held by 
any particular l^ranch of the Church, or illus- The Bible tfie 

alone rule 

tiated by tradition, or confirmed by human practice. ^"*^ 
reason, but as given by God through the holy men that 
wrote its pages, and truthfully interpreted from their lips, is 
our infallil)le rule of faith and practice. 

Of the necessity of this great superhuman orl:) of light, 
Dr. Goulburn remarks that it arises from man's "utter 
mental darkness as to his destiny, as to his duties, and 
as to his dangers ; above all, as to the mcth- Necessity for 

this infallible 

od in which he must be saved, A revelation rule. 
upon these points must be made to him by God if his 
feet are to be set upon the way that leadeth unto life. That 
need is represented by imagining men in a state of natural 
darkness, unrelieved save by a few twinkling stars. Let the 
faint and feeble ray of these stars represent all the aid which 
man can get from what is proudly called the moral sense ; 
that is, his innate notions of right and wrong. Can you see 
objects by starlight in their true colors? Can you avoid 
pitfalls and marshes and stumbling-blocks by starlight ? 
Can you do any work eflfectually by starlight? or is it not 
rather- true that we must work while we have sunlight ; and 
that when the night cometh no man can work ? In a similar 
manner we see not good and evil in their true colors ; we are 
ignorant of the tremendous danger of sinful courses, ignorant 
of the traps which Satan sets in our way, ignorant of how to 

»« PsaJm cxix, 105. 

2 



18 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 

serve God f)roperly, and as lie would be served, Mdtliout 
instruction from above on these and similar points. We 
must have light, and this light is called revelation, the 
revelation under which we live (or Christian revelation) 
being the clearest and best ever yet vouchsafed to the 
world." " 

*' Devotional Study of the Scriptures, p. 184. 



THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 19 



CHAPTER 11. 

INSPIRATION. 

'TIIIE Bible claims God as its aiitlior, but all its pages were 
-*- written by liiiman hands, and bear the sig- God the jin- 

'' ' ° tlior, ment e 

iiificant marks of the different writers. Its Bibie!"' ""^ ^"' 
various books were written at different periods, often with 
long lapses of time between them. Its first records, the five 
books attributed to Moses, and called from their number in 
Greek the Pentateuch, were written more than thii'ty-three 
hundred years ago — fifteen hundred years before Christ ; its 
last book is sujDposed to have been completed in the year of 
our Lord one hundi'ed. It was, therefore, dming the long 
l^eriod of sixteen hundi'ed years that the work of revelation 
was going on. 

The Bible contains the oldest writings in the world. The 
most ancient human histories now in existence, Bihie the md- 

1 r" TT T T mi T 1 . est vohmie in 

those ot Herodotus and Thucydides, were wnt- the world, 
ten a thousand years after the times of Moses. It is com- 
posed of sixty-six different books, and was written by, at 
least, forty different authors. It is generally T\Titten in the 
language of common life, but always in a style various au- 

p 1. . ,. . T T. . thnrsanddif- 

ot commanding simplicity and dignity. Its hu- ferent styles, 
man authors filled almost every position in life from the 
humblest to the most exalted. The peculiarities of the 
writers, their cultivation or lack of it, the times in which 



20 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 

they lived, the dialect they used, the station they filled, theii 
gradual advance in divine illumination, are all disclosed in 
the various books forming the completed revelation of the 
will of God to man. Some of the books are historical, some 
ciiaracter of of them Summaries of religious rites, some gen- 

the different 

books. ealogical, others dramatical and poetical, and 

others still in highly- wrought and sublime figures embody 
prophecies stretching through all ages. The wonderful truth 
in reference to them all is, that, when thus brought together 
All harmoni- from SO many sources, from so many ages, in so 

ous in their 

teachings. many styles, and composed separately without 
reference to their final collection in one volume, there should 
be found throughout them all an absolute harmony in their 
revelations of the character and purposes of God, of the 
nature and necessities of man, and of the one great, divine 
plan of human redemption. Each portion seems to be nat- 
urally related to the others, and has an important office to 
perform in completing the perfect and harmonious scheme. 

In every respect, excepting their remarkable knowledge of 
Writers of the divine trutlis, the Scripture waiters w^ere like 

Bible not ac- ' ^ 

quaintedwith , . . , , „, , , . , , , 

science. their neighbors. Ihey had no special knowledge 

above their fellows as to general science and history. They 
did not pronounce their revelations in a scientific form. If 
this had not been the case. Dean Milman^ remarks, how 
utterly unintelligible would their words have been to their 
fellow-men! Conceive of a prophet, or psalmist, or an 
apostle, endowed vrith premature knowledge, and talking of 
the various geological periods in the history of the earth, or 

• History of Jews. Preface to revised edition. Vol. i, pp. 17-19. 



THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 21 

of the planetary system according to the Newtonian laws, 
instead of simply declaring "in the beginning God created 
the heavens and the earth," and speaking of the " sun going 
forth as a bridegroom to run his course !" They disclosed 
the mighty truths of God in the common and ordinarily pic- 
turesque and poetic language of the days in which they lived. 
This form, requiring now careful study and re- Clothed in fi?. 

^ ^ <=> *' urative and 

flection to apprehend its exact meaning, was guage! 
insejjarable from their daily life, and the only common 
medium for the conveyance of revelation to all ages. In no 
other form, humanly speaking, would they have struck so 
deep into the mind and heart of man, or clung to it with 
such inseverable tenacity. It is as speaking frequently in 
the noblest poetry, and constantly addressing the imagina- 
tive as well as the reasoning faculty of man, that these 
Scriptures have survived through ages, and have been and 
are still imperishable when considered only as the work of 
human minds. As the teachers were men of their age in all 
but religious advancement, so their books were the books of 
their age. They were the oracles of God in their divine 
instructions, while the language in which they were spoken 
was human, and uttered in a style to be understood by the 
half-enlightened people for whose benefit they Revelation is 

thus adapted 

were first declared ; and, what is still more sig- to all ages. 
nificant of their divine origin, revealing clearly the same 
truths in an impressive manner to races of diiferent customs 
and tongues fin advanced in civilization, and familiar v^ ith 
the amazing disclosures of modern science. 

Although speaking in their owm natural style, and giving 



22 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 

utterance often to tlieir own personal emotions, or simply 
The writers recording events passing under tlieir eyes, the 

claim to be 

iDspired. wiiters claim for themselves and aflBnn of each 

other that their records contain the words of God, and are 
uttered under his inspiration. 

In no other way can theii* unity and harmony be accounted 
for. " If the Scriptures are not the word of God," says Pro- 
fessor Murphy in the introduction to his comments upon 
^„ . , . Genesis, "then the writers of these Scriptures, 

Claim to m- - ' ^ ' 

tabitshed by wlio dircctly and indirectly affirm their divine 

veracity of 

tiie wiiters. origin are false witnesses ; and if they have 
proved unworthy of credit in this fundamental j^oiiit, they 
can be of no authority on other equally important mattere. 
But neither before examination, nor after an examination of 
eighteen centuries, have we the slightest reason for doubting 
the veracity of these men, and their unanimous evidence is 
in favor of the divine authorship of the Bible. All that w^e 
have learned of the contents of these books accords with 
theii' claim to be the word of God. The constant harmony 
of their statements when fairly interpreted with one another, 
r^veKtfo^n °^ ^'ith general history, and with jjhysical and 
law! metaphysical truth, affords an incontestable 

proof of their divine origin. The statements of other early 
writers have invariably come into conflict with historical or 
scientific truth. But still further, these books communicate 
to us matters concerning God, the origin and the future 
iTuman au- destiny of man, which are of vital importance 

thorship im- 

liossibie. 121 tlicmselvcs, and yet are absolutely beyond the 

reach of human intuition, oLscrvation, or deduction. It is 



THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 23 

impossil^le, tlicrefore, for mere human beings, apart fi'om 
di"Kne instruction and autlioiity, to attest these things to us 
at all. Hence these books, if they were not traceable ulti- 
mately to a divine author, would al)solutely fail us in the 
ve"y points that are essential to be known, namely, the origin 
of our being, the relation in which we stand to God, and the 
Tv^ay to eternal happiness, on which neither science nor his- 
toiy afford us any light. But they yield a clear, definite, and 
consistent light and help, meeting the very ask- They meet the 

peat wants 

ings and longings of our souls on these moment- of our nature 
ons toj)ics. The wonderful way in which they convince the 
reason, probe the conscience, and apply a healing balm to 
the wounded spirit, is in itself an independent attestation to 
their divine origin." ^ 

The Bible is not a specimen of the style of the Holy Spirit 
as a writer ; but the different authors expressed The Bibie not 

a specimen of 

in their own language and by their own illustra- God's style. 
tions the ideas poured into their minds from on high. The 
revelation is perfect and plenary, for it is divine; but the 
medium is imperfect and exposes its human limitations and 
weaknesses, and so much the more confirms the di\'ine origin 
of the truths that are taught. If each word, as Words not 

necessarily 

some teach, was inspired, then the writers were inspired, 
simply amanuenses, and every book of Scripture, like the 
Ten XJommandments, is a specimen of divine and not human 
composition. The Son of man was no less a perfect man, 
hungering, thirsting, sleeping, weeping, because he was the 
Son of God ; and the Bible, with all its marks of human 

' CJommentary on Genesis. By James S. Murphy, LL.D. 



24 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 

hands and human weaknesses, is none the less a revelation of 
the word and will of God. Says Dr. Schaff, in his " Ancient 
Christianity :" " The New Testament presents in its way the 
same union of the divine and human natures as the person of 
Christ. In this sense also the ' word is made flesh and dwells 
Dr Schaff on ^^^^^ng US.' The Bible is thoroughly human 

likcnGss of • • 

Scripture to (though without error) m contents and form, m 

Christ's per- 

^"- the mode of its rise, its compilation, its preser- 

vation, and transmission ; yet at the same time thoroughly 
divine both in its thoughts and words, in its origin, vitality, 
energy, and efiect, and beneath the human servant-form of 
the letter the eye of faith discerns the glory of the only- 
begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth." ^ 

Westcott says, in his "Introduction to the Study of the 
Westcott on -^^^ Testament:" "The human powers of the 

Inspu-ation. ,. . , t j. xr, • x i 

divme messenger act accord mg to their natural 
laws, even when these laws are supernaturally strengthened. 
Man is not converted into a mere machine even in the hand 
of God. . . . The nature of man is not neutralized by the 
divine agency, and the truth of God is not impaired, but 
exactly expressed in one of its several aspects to the indi- 
vidual mind." 

If the inspiration were verbal, then a constant miracle 
would have been required from the beginning to 

Verbal inspi- 

rtSe a conl preserve the purity of the text, and every tran- 

stant miracle. ., -i , i , • , -. 

scnlDcr and translator into a new language must 
necessarily enjoy the same inspiration from the Holy Spirit.* 

' History of the Christian Church, vol. 1, p. 93. 

* Dean Milman presents this objection to what is sometimes called mec\(tni' 
eul or verbal inspiration. "Is it the Hebrew or the Greek Septnagint of wliich 



THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. ZO 

But the Holy Spiiit lias simply acted through men, with 
divine wisdom revealing its own truths, while they have 
expressed it in accordance with their natural constitution 
and abilities. Through all Scripture Christ, the word of 
God, speaks from first to last, and all Scripture is permanently 
fitted for our instruction ; " a true spiritual meaning, eternal 
and absolute, lies beneath liistorical, ceremonial, and moral 
details." * 

The manner in which inspiration is bestowed, like every 
other gift of God, is determined by the neces- Jf "he'\*'aHed 
sities of the case. " At one time we may picture spiration. 
to ourselves the lawgiver recording the letter of the divine 
law which he had received directly from God 'inscribed 

every sentence, phrase, word, syllable is thus inspired. Every one knows, or 
ought to know, how much they differ, not only in the sense, but in omissions 
and additional passages found in one, not in the other. It will be said, of 
course, the Hebrew. But the writers of the New Testament, when their cita- 
tions are verbally accurate, usually quote the Septuagint. For three or four 
centuries till the time of Jerome, the Septuagint was the Old Testament of the 
rhurch. Till Jerome no one of the Christian fathers, except perhaps Origen, 
knew Hebrew, All this time, then, the Christian world was without the true, 
genuine, only-inspired Scripture, For above ten centuries more the (Church 
was dependent on the fidelity and Hebrew knowledge of Jerome for the in- 
spired word of God. Luther must have been, in this view, a greater benefactor 
to mankind than his fondest admirers suppose by his appeal to the Hebrew 
original, and was Luther an infallible authority for every word and syllable ?" — 
Prpface to HistoTy of the Jeioa, p. 43. 

" What matters it," says St. Augustine in commenting upon the passage, " Save, 
Lord, we perish," the words and the time of their utterance being variously 
reported by the evangelists ; " What matters it whether the disciples, in calling 
on the Lord, really used one or another of these expressions, or some other 
differing from them all, but still giving the sense that they were perishing, and 
called on him to save them '"'— IIu^o to Stiidy the New Textament, Dean Alford 
p. 20. 

* Westcott, p. 444. 



26 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 

upon tables of stone' or spoken 'face to face.' At another 
we may watch the sacred historian, unconsciously it may be, 
and yet freely, seizing on those facts in the history of the 
past which were the turning-points of a nation's spiritual 
progress, gathering the details wdiich combine to give the 
truest pictm'e of each crisis, and grouping all according to 
the laws of a marvelous symmetry, which in after-times 
might symbolize their hidden meaning. Or we may see the 
prophet gazing intently on the great struggle going on 
around him, discerning the spirits of men and the springs of 
national life, till the relations of time no longer exist in his 
vision — till all strife is referred to the final conflict of good 
and evil foreshadowed in the great judgments of the world, 
and all hope is centered in the coming of the Saviour and m 
the certainty of his future triumph. Another, perhaps, looks 
within his own heart, and as a new light is poured over its 
inmost depths, his devotion finds expression in songs of per 
sonal penitence and thanksgiving, in confession of sin and 
declarations of righteousness, which go far to reconcile the 
mysterious contradictions of our nature. To another is given 
the task of building up the Church. By divine instinct he 
sees in scattered congregations types of the great forms of 
society in coming ages, and addresses to them, not systems 
of doctrine, but doctrine embodied in deed, which applies to 
all time, because it expresses eternal truths, and yet specially 
to each, time, because it is connected mth the realities of 
daily life." ' 
Thus all the different Scripture writings taken together 
* Introduction to ihe Study of tlio Gospels, Westcott, p. 3T. 



THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 27 

may be considered one harmonious message of God si)oken 
in many parts and many manners, hy men and to men, tlie 
distinct lessons of indi\ddual ao'es reachinjic from one time to 
all time. 

This same idea of inspiration is expressed byAlford in the 
prolegomena to his edition of the Greek Tcsta- 

^ ® Alfnril on m- 

ment. He says, " The inspiration of the sacred s*^''-''^''"- 
writers I believe to have consisted in the fullness of the 
influence of the Holy Spirit specially raising them to, and 
enabling them for, theu* work, in a manner which distin- 
guishes them from all other writers in the world, and their 
work from all other works. The men were full of the Holy 
Ghost ; the books are the pouring out of that fullness 
through the men, the conservation of the treasure in 
earthern vessels. The treasure is ours in all its richness; 
but it is ours as only it can be ours, in the imperfections of 
human speech, in the limitations of human thought, in the 
variety incident at first to individual character, and tlien to 
manifold transcription and the lapse of ages. The men 
were inspired, and the books are the results of that in- 
spiration." ^ 

« I'rolegomena to Alford's Greek Testament, Harx)er's Edition, p. 21. With 
the exception of the clause in the following quotation, which is italicized, we 
could not find, perhaps, a better succinct presentation of the doctrine of inspira- 
tion than is given by Garbett in his able treatise, written chiefly in defense of 
the theory of verbal inspiration. The author does not adhere to his definition 
in the body of his work. " There was (in writing the Holy Scriptures) a con- 
currence of the act of God with the act of man. First, he endowed the man 
with these particular gifts, and chose him to be his instrument. Secondly, he 
guided his mind in the selection of what he should say, and of the revelation of 
tlie material of his writing where such a reveMion was made necessary through 
the defect of hum.an knowledge. Thirdly, he acted in and on the intellect and 



28 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 

Professor Mm^phy, in his introduction, presents the view 
The Scripture which the Scriptures themselves take of the 

view of in- 

Bpiration. nature of their own inspiration, insisting, like 

Gaussen, uj)on the uispu-ation of the book rather than of the 
writers. The Bible, however, just as clearly aflSLrms that the 
holy men who wrote it were "moved by the Holy Ghost" 
as that the pages they inscribed were mspired. " The Apostle 
Paul," says Professor Murphy, " in writing to Timothy, a 
pastor and teacher in the Church of God, makes use of the 
following expressions (literally rendered) concerning Scrip- 
tm'e : ' The holy Scrijjta, able to make thee wise unto 
salvation;' and, 'Every Scripture given by inspiration of God 
and profitable for doctrine.' From these expressions we 
gather the following order of doctrine concerning the origin 
and character of the Bible : 1. It is given by inspiration of 
God. 2. It is first holy ; second, able to make wise unto 
salvation ; and third, profitable for doctrine and other pur- 
poses of edification. In these elements of the doctrine of in- 
spiration the following points are worthy of remark : 1. It is 
a writing, not a writer, of which the character is here given. 
The thing said to be inspired is not that which goes into the 
mind of the author, but that which comes out of his mind 
by means of his pen. It is not the material on which he is 

heart of the writer in the act of committing the words to writing; not only 
bestowing a more than human elevation, but securing the truthfulness oi the 
thing written, and vi(,l<Uvg tlu lcivgu(igeint> the form (ic:'or(Jitvt to niH men 
u-i't. To sum up the whole, verbal inspiration simply amounts to this : that 
while the words of Scripture are truly and characteristically the words of men, 
they ar-^ at the same time fully and concurrently the words of God." — G'tcP-* 
Word ir, itten, p. 358. We should rather say, in the last clause of the closing 
sentence, the]/ (the words) do fuUy and concurrently r<ve(tl th- wiUofGod. 



THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 29 

to exercise his mind, but the result of that mental exercise 
which is here characterized. Hence, it has received all the 
impress, not merely of man in general, but even of the indi- 
's idual author in particular, at the time when it is so desig- 
nated. It is that piece of composition which the human 
author has put into a written form which is described as 
inspired. 2. To be insi^ired of God, is to be communicated 
from God, who is a Spirit, to the mind of man. The mode 
of communication we do not pretend to explain, but the 
possibility of such communication we cannot for a moment 
doubt. The immediate author of a human book may not be 
the ultimate author of a single sentiment it con- illustration 

° of the double 

. . TT 1 • T ±' 1^ n^ authorship of 

tarns. He may have received every lact ii'om the Bible. 
trustworthy witnesses, who are, after all, the real vouchers 
for all it records ; and the very merit of the immediate 
author may consist in judiciously selecting the facts, faith- 
fully adhering to his authorities, and properly arranging his 
materials for the desired effect. Analogous to this is the 
divine authorship of the sacred volume. By the inspiration 
of the Almighty the human author is made to perceive cer- 
tain things divine and human, to select such as are to be 
revealed, and to record these with fidelity in the natm*al 
order, and to the proper end. The result is a writing given 
by inspu-ation of God, with all the peculiarities of man and 
air the authority of God. 3. Such a written revelation is 
* holy.' The primary holiness of a writing is its ^^^ hoiinesg 
truth. God's part in it secures its veracity and 
credibility. Even man often tells the truth where he is a 
disinterested witness ; and we believe not only his sincerity 



80 THE WOKD OF GOD OPENED. 

])\it Ills competence. God, wlio cannot lie, is able to secure 
his scribes from error, intentional or imintentional. Tlie 
secondary holiness of a writing appears in the two following 
l)articulars : 4. It is also ' able to make wise unto salvation,' 
Office of the '^^^^ refers to the kind of truth contained in the 
book of God. It is a revelation of mercy, of 
peace on earth, and good-will to man. This, at the same 
time, imparts an unspeakable interest to the book, and pomts 
out the occasion warranting the divine interference for its 
composition. 5. It is also ' j)rofitable for doctrine.' It tends 
to holiness. It is moral as well as merciful in its revelations. 
It contains truth, mercy, and righteousness. It reflects, there- 
fore, the holiness of God. It is in all respects worthy of its 
high original." ' 

The discussion upon this vital topic may be closed l)y 

„ . saying that this comijleted book of holy writ- 

Summary of "^ o ^ •' 

discussion. . , ,. ..... , •, -• -, 

mgs has, Irom its beginning to its end, been 
prepared under the immediate direction and inspiration of 
the divine Spirit, and through all its various pages God does 
disclose his nature and perfections to our race, and so ex 
hibits his purposes of mercy to mankind that whoever 
earnestly, prayerfully, and with a penitent heart, searches 
them will be made by them " wise unto salvation.'* 

' Commentary on Genesis, hy J. G. Murphy, LL.D., p. 12. 



THE WORD OF GOD OPE.\ ED. 31 



H 



CHAPTER HI. 

THE canojst: its genuineness. 

OW natural tlie question, as we open our English Bibles : 
"If the first portions of this volume were is our English 

A Bible the 

written more than twenty-three hundred years as°\eveakd? 
ago, and the last book nearly eighteen hundi'cd years since, 
how strong a confidence may I jjlace in our version, that in it 
we have, with great exactness, the revelations of the Holy 
Spirit as they were inspii-ed and recorded l)y the holy men 
who received them ? " 

The Old Testament was nearly all of it written in Hebrew. 
The portions composed during and after the oripinai Lm- 

guase of Olil 

capti\dty of the Jews in Babylon were written Testament. 
in a dialect very similar, and called after the nations from 
whom they learnetl it, the Chaldee. 

The canon of the Old Testament — so called from the Greek 
word Kav(ov^ a cane, a measure, a perfect rule — as The canon. 
containing the full and divine measure of inspiration and 
perfect rule of faith and life, was completed about four 
hun(h'ed years before Chnst. Ezra is supposed carefully to 
have gathered together the sacred books written before his 
day after the return from the captivity. His own record, 
and that of Nehemiah, were afterward added, and no further 
addition was made. 

Certain interesting historical books, recounting the wars of 



82 THE WORD OF GOD OPEI^ED. 

the Jews under the Maccabean princes between the closing 

of the canon and the times of Christ, stretching over a period 

B. C. 325 to B. C. 160, together with certain other 

Apocrypha. 

books of poetry, proverbs, personal incidents, and 
improbable fables, under the title of Apocrypha, were for- 
merly bound up in the volume with the sacred canon. These 
V h ofth s books are only of value for the light they throw 

upon this period of Jewish history, and the 
evidence, by striking contrast, in almost every respect, which 
they give of the inspiration of the other Scriptures. The 
Jews never accounted them to be a part of the holy writings, 
How they and it was left to the Roman Church, at the 

found a place 

ill the Bible. council held in 1546 in Trent in Austria, com- 
posed chiefly of Italian cardinals and bishops, called together 
by the pope, to put " for the first time the apocryphal books 
in the rank of the Scriptures of God." ^ 

There is evidence in the Hebrew Scriptures themselves, in 
Care taken of their Constant reference to the law of God as 

Jewish Scrip- 
tures, contained in preceding holy writings, the public 

reading of them, and general regard for them, of the ex- 
traordinary care taken for their preservation, and for the 
purity of their transcription. 

The books of the law were placed in the tabernacle with 
the ark of the covenant, and were kept there during the jour- 
neys in the wilderness, and afterward in the Land of Promise.'* 
To the same sanctuary were the various historical, poetical, 
and prophetical books consigned. On the erection of the 

* The Canon of Scripture, by Gaussen, p. 454. 

« Deut xxxi, 9, 26; 1 Sam. x, 25; 2 Kings xxii, 8 : laa. xxxlv, 16L 



THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 3B 

kmplc Solomon deposited in it these sacred treasures, and 
enriched them by inspired productions from his own pen. 
What became of the sacred books when the tem- 

Bible in Baby- 

ple was destroyed we are not informed, but in ^^^ 
Babylon Daniel speaks of the book of the law as familiar to 
him, and also of the prophets.^ 

Jewish writers, like Philo, the Alexandrine Jew, bom 
thirty years before Christ, and Josephus, in 

•' -^ ' ^ ' Philo and Jo- 

Christ's time, unite in declaring the general cor- ^p^*^^- 

rectness of the text in their day ; and we may readily believe, 

after admitting the inspiration of the volume, Reason to ex- 
pect its pres- 
that the Providence of the same Divine Spirit ervation. 

that supervised its records and gave its revelations would 

secure its preservation. 

Additional grounds of confidence are found in the fact 

that about the time of the close of the canon 

Samantan 

(B. C. 400) a copy of the five books of Moses I'entateuch, 
was made in the Samaritan dialect, for that singular people, a 
mixture of Hebrews and Chaldeans, gathered in that portion 
of the land of Israel called Samaria in Christ's times, durinj? 
the captivity. These sacred writings this people (who kept 
up their separate life and their enmity for the Jewish people, 
an enpiity which was as earnestly returned by them) as care- 
fully preserved as their Hebrew neighboi*s did their copies. 
In A. D. 1623 a full copy of the Samaritan Pentateuch was 
obtained from a body of this nation in Damascus by De 
Saucy, the French embassador at rnnjtrntirmpln _,..^_^irr 
copies have since been obtained 

' Dar.lcl i 




84 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 

of the two versions have been carefully compared, showmg a 
remarkable con'espondence. 

About three hundred years before Christ, through the 
Macedonian invasion of Syria and Persia by 

The areek -^ 

language. Alexander the Great, the Greek language and 

literature were spread over these countries. Alexander 
built a renowned city, bearing his name, upon the Mcdi- 
teiTanean in Egypt. During the wars resulting in the 
Chaldean captivity many of the Jews had re- 

Jews in Egypt. 

moved to Egypt; more folloM'ed under the per- 
secutions of Antiochus, the successor of Alexander in the 
government of Syria. Ptolemy, and his successors who 
bore his name, into whose hands Egypt fell upon the great 
conqueror's death, were generous in their treatment of their 
Jewish suljjects, and encouraged their emigration to the 
ancient land of their former bondage. They had a temple 
in Leontopolis similar to the tenq^le at Jerusalem, and fol- 
lowed the Mosaic order in their worship. These Jews all 
used the Greek language. About the year two hundred 
ami eiglity before Christ, for the benefit of these Hellen- 
istic or Grecian Jews at Alexandria, or at the suggestion 
of Demetrius Phalerius, librarian of the world-renowned 
royal liljrary at Alexandria, a Greek version of the Hebrew 

Bible was made. This was called the Septua- 
Itie Septua- ^ 

^'''^' g"it, that is. Seventy, from the tradition that 

seventy persons were employed in its exccutiDn. Many 
unreliable fobles ^re related of its origin. The translators 
may have been appoiiited by the Sanhedrim, or Council 
of Seventy, at Jerusalem, or their work may have been 



THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 6o 

autlipnlicated by the council consisting of the same numbei 
at x\ lexandria. 

This version is a very free and not always exact translation 
of the Hebrew Scriptures, but is interesting and important as 
tlie most ancient yersion of the entire Old Testament, and as 
made by learned Jews at a period lonj? before 

•^ 1 to Yalue of this 

the date of the oldest existing Heljrew manu- "^'^•"S"*"- 
scripts, and before the Christian era. However widely Jews 
and Christians now differ from each other in their views of 
the Messiah, both receive as the word of their common Lord 
and Master this embodied and completed canon of ancient 
Scripture. 

But still more interesting and important is the fact that it 
was this version of the Old Testament which This version 

used by our 

was used by oui Lord and his apostles, and L-ird. 
from which they made the many hundred quotations lO be 
found throughout the pages of the New Testament. This 
version renders valuable service in the establishment of the 
correctness of the present text, and in the elucidation of the 
meaning of the Hel^rcw Scriptures. 

Having passed the supervision of the Son of God, and 
having been given afresh by him to the world as the Scrip- 
tures of truth, and affirmed to be full of disclosures of him- 
self and his kingdom,^ the question as to whether we liavc 
the whole revelation of God, and v.ith a good degree of cor- 
rectness, as to the Old Testament, is most satisfactorily an- 
swered. The books in this version are the same found in dui 
English Bibles. 

* John V, 33 ; Luke xxiv, 27, 44. 



86 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 

Since the death of Christ the noted Raobinical schools in 
„ ,,. . , Palestine and in the further East, and Jewish 

Rabbinical ' 

schools. scholars of various nations, have united with 

Christians in seeking to perpetuate pui'e copies of these ven- 
erable S'Mnptures, which contain the foundations of their 
common faith. 

For the benefit of Christians who had fled to the East in 
the persecutions that followed the death of Christ, a version 
The Syriac or ^f the Old and New Testaments in the first cen- 

Peshito ver- 
sion, tury was made in the ancient Syriac or Aramaic 

dialect, the tongue generally spoken by the Jews in Palestine 

in the days of our Lord, and which he himself used. This 

version is called the Peshito. An ancient tradition, which is 

considered at least to be probable, says that this version was 

made by translators who were evidently Jewish Christians, 

and who were sent from the city of Edesa, in Persia, by the 

apostle Jude, at the instance of King Abgarus. This version 

is of great critical value. Several ancient Arabic versions 

and the Persian version of the Gospels were made from it. 

There were several Latin versions of the Bible made from 

the Septuagint, the most valuable of which was called the 

Italic, made, it is believed, in the first century 

It alio version. 

fi'om Alexandrian manuscrij)ts. This version 
was highly esteemed by Augustine, who died in the year of 
our Lord four hundred and thirty. 

Origen was one of the most learned, as he was the most 
famous, of the early fathers. He was born in 

OriKen and 

his version. Alexandria A. D. one hundred and eighty-five. 
He "WTote volummous commentaries upon all the books oi 



THE WOKD OF GOD OrEXFJJ 87 

Scripture; but his great work was the thorough levision 
which he made of the Septuagint. He collated it with the 
original Hebrew, and as many Greek and other versions as 
he could secure. He spent twenty-eight years upon this 
work, and traveled throughout the East collecting materials 
for it. This vast work, which consisted of six parallel ver- 
sions, and of some books eight, extended to fifty volumes; 
only portions of it, however, were transcribed, and have been 
preseiTed, while the main work perished. The result of his 
studies in correcting the Septuagint were not entirely lost. 
Jerome, the most learned of the early European fathers, was 

bom in the province of Dalmatia, now in the em- 
Jerome, 
pire of modem Austna, A. D. 346. He studied at 

Rome, and in the German city Treves. Afterward for four 
years he devoted himself to the study of the Scriptures in a 
cell near the city of Antioch in Asia Minor. Here he ac- 
quired that skill in the Hebrew language which he turned tc 
so good account. At this time the manuscript copies of tht 
Latin versions of the Bible had become very con*upt through 
omissions and additions, notes and comments being often 
given as a portion of the sacred text. Jerome was highly 
esteemed for his scholarship and saintly character by Dam- 
asus, Bishop of Rome, and at his request was induced to 
undertake a new version of the Bible in Latin, then the pie- 
vailing language of the Western or European Church. He 
availed himself of the labors of Origen, and of all the early 
Eastern versions of the Scriptures. Being dissatisfied with the 
Septuagint translation of the Hebrew Bible he made a new ver- 
Bion from the Hebrew text. This version surpasses all former 



88 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 

ones ill the care with which it is executed, and in its gen- 
eral correctness. This is the famous Vulgate ver- 

The Vulgate. 

sion, (so called because in common use,) still final 
authority in the Roman Chmxh. It was completed about 
A. T). 390, but was very slowly and reluctantly allowed to dis- 
place other editions in use in the Churches. It was not until 
Generally in- the time of Popc GrregoiT I., iu the seventh cen- 

troduced in x o j ■> ^ 

centuryJ^"*^^ tm*y, that it met with general acceptance. Its 

often transcription exposed its text to constant variations, and 

from time to time new revisions were made. The first book 

printed was a copy of the Vulgate at Mentz, called 

Vulgate first ^ rj & ) 

printed book. ^^^ a ^azarin Bible," about A. D. 1455, copies of 
which are still- extant. In 1546 the Council of Trent ordained 
that this edition should be " esteemed authentic, and that no 
Declared in- one should dare to reiect it mi'der any pretense 

fMllible liy '' -^ ^ 

o^Trent"*^^^ whatever." In fact they declared this version to 

be an inspired book, with no errors in it, although at the same 

time they tried to correct some of the errors in it.^ 

Pope Sixtus v., in 1590, ordered a revised edition to be 

issued, corrected himself the proofs, and declared it to be of 

perpetual authority ; but there were so many errors in it that 

his successor caused the whole edition to be can- 
Edition of 

Pope Sixtus. celed. The work was again undertaken under 
Clement VIII. and completed in 1592. This is the author- 
itative edition from which the Roman Catholic copies of ^be 
Scriptures in Latin are prmted. It is not al- 

Clementine 

edition. lowed to be criticised, and is called the Clemen- 

tine edition. 

* Manuscript notes of Prof. Shedd's Seminary Lectures. 



THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 89 

Tlierc were otlier less important early versions, such as the 
Coptic, tlie language spoken by the native Egj'ptians, the 
Ethiopian, the Gothic, the tongue of the invaders of Rome, 
Persian, Arabian, etc. ; but these that have been described 
somewhat at length will enable us to see the important serv- 
ice which early transciiptions from these versions afford in 
the criticism and inteqjretation of the text of our modern 
versions of the holy records. 

Before referring to this we shall consider the question of the 
authority and genuineness of the canon of the New 

•^ *=■ The New Teg- 

Testament. As was stated in the opening chap- t^^^e'^tc^'^""- 
ter, God spake lirst by inspired men. While the apostles lived 
and moved about among the Churches the necessity would 
not exist for a collection of the records of Christ's inspired men 

preceded the 

life and doctrines, or of the instructions of their Scriptures. 
inspired teachers. The early Christians were permitted to 
receive the facts of the Gospel from the lips of " eye-wit- 
nesses," and to enjoy the discipline of tlie apostles them- 
selves. 

Dr. AVliedon remarks, in the introduction to his Com- 
mentary upon Luke and John, that after the Gospels had 
been written, down even to the close of the second century, 
tlie early Church clung fondly to the oral traditions handed 
down from the Saviour's and from apostolical lips. He 
quotes from Papias as saying : " I do not think ^^ AV],erton 
that I derived so much benefit from books as from municlitinns 

frcmi ttieapos- 

tlie living voice of those who are still surviving, to'icai ag:e. 
If I met with any one who had been a follower of the elders 
'^the apostles and their contemporaries) I made it a point 



40 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 

to inquire what were the declarations of the eldere, and 
what was said by Andrew, Peter, or Philip; what by 
Thomas, James, John, Matthew, or any of the disciples of 
onr Lord." The quotation shows both that sacred mauu- 
Bcripts were then in existence, and also that their personal 
traditions from the lips of the apostles corresponded with 
them and confirmed them. In a day when books could only 
be multiplied by the painful process of copying letter for 
letter, we can readily see how precious these personal oral 
discourses must have been. It would appear probable that 
at an early day many persons made records of such incidents 
and discourses of our Lord as came to their hear- 

Many recorda 

made. ^^^ j-^^ Lukc says in the introduction to his 

Gospel : " Forasmuch as many have taken in hand to set forth 
in order a declaration of those things which are most surely 
believed among us, even as they delivered them unto us, 
which from the beginning were eye-witnesses, and ministers 
of the word ; it seemed good to me also, having had perfect 
understanding of all things from the very first^ to write," etc. 
AJi these rec- The fact that all these other written records were 

ords dism>- 

peared. allowed to perish, and are never referred to or 

quoted by early Christian writers, is a very significant evi- 
dence of the different estimation in which the four evan- 
gelical records were held, and of the satisfactory character 
of the writings that have been thus divinely preserved 
amid the general loss of all other histories of these imazing 
facts. 

The Gospels were universally admitted in the early Church 
to have been written by the persons whose names they bear. 



THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 41 

Matthew, wlio remained in Jerusalem, wrote his Gospel first, 
primarily for the benefit of the Hebrew Chris- ^^,!^o"e Ibr tiie 
tians that remained through all the persecutions tians. 
in Judea. He is thought by some to have been related to 
the apostle James, sometimes called the head of the Church 
in Jerusalem,® and a similarity is pointed out between Mat- 
thew's record of the Sermon upon the Mount and the Epistle 
of James. He brings out before his Jewish readers with 
great distinctness the Messiahship of Jesus, his true kingly 
character, and his office as sent to the lost presents the 

/.Ti-r-i T 1 Messiahsliip 

sheep oi the house oi Israel. From James, who and kinciy 

cliaracter of 

was, after the fiesh, a kinsman of the Lord, he C'^"^*- 
may have learned " the mystery of that birth, the genealogy 
of inheritance which heirs of the house of David treasured 
up, the visit of the wise men, the flight into Egypt. How 
such a record met the cravings of human hearts we may 
judge fi:om the hold wliich the history of the nativity has in 
all ages had upon countless thousands of loving and child- 
like hearts." ^ 

•'The Gospel of St. Matthew," says Alford, "is that one to 
which we owe, more than to any other, our complete idea of 
our blessed Lord as the promised Messiah, the holy one of 
God, the king and head over all to his Church. Jn the vi^ id 
depictions of St. Mark we have ever his personal image before 
us, aud the very sound of his voice ; in the careful and pre- 
cious collections of St. Luke we see him as the Saviour of 
our race, the head and root of our humanity ; while it is from 
this first and best known of the Gospels that the image of 
• Christ and Christendom, pp. 53-56. ' Ibid. 



42 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 

liiin especially arises, whicli is so mucli in the thouglits and 

hearts of all of us who believe — that chosen One, in whom 

center all the ways and works of God ; perfect in majesty, 

perfect in mercy ; the king's son, for whom is made the 

great marriage of heaven and earth ; the bridegroom, into 

whose feast the wise and virgin souls shall enter ; the king 

himself, who shall come to take account of his own servants : 

nay, A^ho shall come, and all the holy angels with him, and 

sit on the throne of his glory, with all the nations before him, 

and allot to every one his eternal doom." " 

John, surnamed Mark, was the nephew of Barnabas.® His 

mother, the sister of Paul's first comijanion in mis- 
Mark. ,. . , 
sionary labors,^" must have been an early disciple, 

and her house in Jerusalem the resort, perhaps, of Christ 

and the apostles. Certainly Peter made a home there." The 

-Written un- o^^^ tradition is strongly confirmed that he wrote 

der sanction . 

of Peter. his Gospel uudcr the guidance oi the apostle 

Peter. He was v^-iih. this apostle wdien he wrote his epistles 
to the Churches.'^ In the Second Epistle Peter intimates 
that he had taken measures to enable the Asiatic Churches 
Peter seems to "have in remembrance" that the incidents 

to promise a -.-.t itit 

Gospel. which they had heard about the Lord Jesus 

Christ from his lips were not " cunningly-devised fables." '' 
Probably in this he referred to the fact that his son Marcus, 
as he affectionately calls hira, was recording from his lips the 
incidents in sacred history that had passed under his eye 
Of his Gospel, Plumptre remarks, "There are, as has bien 

e How to Study the New Testament, p. T7. » Acts Iv, 30. i° Acts xiii, 2 
" Acts xii, 12. 12 1 Peter v, 13. ^^ 2 Peter i, 15, 16. 



THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 43 

often noticed, vivid pictorial toiiclies wliicli speak of knowl- 
edge such as belongs to an eye-witness : Tlie Evidently 

written by an 

scene of the ' green grass ' in Bethsaida, and the eye-witness. 
groups in which the multitude arranged themselves l.-y 
hundreds and fifties ; the dashing of the weaves in the ship 
while our Lord was sleeping on the boat's cushion in the 
stern; the smaller craft that accompanied the ship of the 
disciples ; the touches of personal knowledge in the history 
of the demoniac who j^lucked asunder his chains and ground 
his fetters together till they were broken ; of the w^oman with 
the issue of blood, who had suffered many things of many 
physicians, and had spent all that she had ; ^* of the glance 
and gesture with which the Lord looked round in anger at 
the hardness of men's hearts, or in pity and yearning love 
upon the rich young ruler, or in apiDroving w^elcome to 
the disciples whom he claimed as his true kindred ; the 
special notice of the strange apparition in Gethsemane of 
the young man with the linen cloth cast around his naked 
body ; '^ these are but a few of the long list of details of like 
nature." 

Mark's Gospel is not eminently one adapted for the He- 
brews like Matthew's, nor for the Gentiles as w^as Adapted to 

Jew andGeu- 

Luke's, but belonged equally to both, as Peter tile. 
was at once an apostle to the circumcision, and was chosen to 
open the door of faith to the Gentile world. ^^ 
Luke, the " beloved physician " ^'' and companion 

Luke. 

of Paul, is supposed to have written the tw^o treat- 

I* Mark iv, 36, 38; v, 25, 26; vi, 39, 40. i* Mark ill, 5; x, 21 ; iii, 34. 

** Christ and Christendom, -p. 49. i^ Colossians iv, 14. 



44 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 

ises bearing his name under the eye of the apostle to the 

Gentiles. Luke is suiDposed to have been a resident of An- 

tioch, and to have become acquainted vdth Paul in this 

city.^^ This city became the center of the Gen- 

Antioch. 

tile Church, as Jerusalem vv^as of the Church of 
the circumcision. "The prominence given to the arrival 
there of the men of wider thoughts who left Jerusalem after the 
death of Stephen, and then of the men of Cyprus and Cyrene, 
who took the bold step of preaching to the heathen, and then 
of Barnabas and Saul, the stress laid on the new name of 
Christian, as originating there, and on the liberality of that 
Church to the poor at Jerusalem ; the list of proj)hets con- 
spicuous there ; but, with the exception of Paul and Barnabas, 
not otherwise memorable,^^ are all indications of the writer's 
residence in Antioch between the time of St. Paul's conver- 
sion and his first missionary journey. And if so, then we are 
The sources ^ble to trace, with hardly a shadow of uncer- 

of Luke's Gos- 

i>*^i- tainty, the channels through which he may have 

obtained most of the materials of his narrative. Those that 
fled from Jerusalem on the persecution must have included 
some of the personal disciples of Christ.^" The fullness with 
which all facts connected with the personal history of Herod 
Antipas are told is accounted for when we remember that 
one of the chief teachers at Antioch was Manaen, the foster 

*8 "Luke, the 'beloved physician, and Demas, greet you." Thus wrote St 
Paul from his prison at Eoine to the Colossians. " Demas hath forsaken me 
having loved this present world. . . . Only Luke is with me." Thus he wrote 
some j'ears after when he was now ready to be offered up, and the time of hii 
departure was at hand, to his son Timotheus. — IMan Afford. 

>» Acts xiii, 1. 20 Acts xxi, 16. 



THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 45 

br«^her of the tetrarch ; that the wife of Herod's steward had 
been one of the faithful women who followed our Lord 
through his ministrations. The clew thus ol^tained leads us, 
I believe, yet farther. 1. One of the most distinctive features 
of the Gospel of St. Luke is the full collection of j)arables 
and narratives, beloncnncr all of them to one and 

' ° ° Parables of 

the same journey, the last journey through Persea ^" ^' 
toward Jerusalem. In Persea was one of the strongholds of 
Antipas. If there were those in his court who were avow- 
edly or in heart disciples of the Nazarene, this would be the 
teaching with which they would come most in contact, and 
be most anxious to preserve. 2. Hardly less characteristic is 
the special fullness and the marked Hebrew stamp of his nar- 
rative of the nativity. Was he incorporating a Hebrew 
record with his otnti ? and if so, where did that 

Account of 

come from? on whose testimony did it rest? t^^e nativity. 
why was it preserved ? Friendship with Herod's foster- 
brother and the wife of Herod's steward would lead to some 
knowledge of the other members of the devout circle of 
women whom St. Luke names so conspicuously,^' of the 
mother of James and John, of Mary of Magdala, of those 
sisters of Bethany whom he is the first to mention.'" But in 
that group there had once been one around whom they must 
have gathered with the love of daughters, and all but the 
reverential awe of worshipers. They had known the mother 
of the Lord. Some of them must have lived for years in 
closest contact with her. They would treasure up every 
record of that marvelous history which she had kept and 

a» Luke vlii, 2, 3. 22 Luke x, 38 42. 



46 THE WORD OF GOD OFE^^ED. 

pondered in her beaii;. From them and through them, with 
no doubtfiil or deteriorating transmission, from her may 
have come that which we may call the true Gospel of tho 
infancy." ^^ 

John outlived all the apostles, and is recorded to have ac- 
knowledged publicly the authority of the first tliree 

John 

Gospels, and to have added his own to complete 
tliem. In the same way, though less directly, he is supposed 
to have attested the book of Acts.-* ''As there were rea 
sons,"' Plumjjtre remarks in his lectures, from which we have 
ah'eady quoted, "personal, it may be, which prevented the 
record of the raising of Lazarus from being made known till 
Early Orospeis ^i^ himself had died or had left Jerusalem, so, as 

reserved on 

some poiutri. long as tlic apostlc remained there, in filial con- 
secration of his life to the care of his Lord's mother, the 
records that were cmTcnt in the Churches of Palestine were 
probably in harmony with that reserve, and are represented 
hj what reflects directly and indirectly the teaching of tho 
apostles of the circumcision, modified in the case of Luke by 
his association with St. Paul and with tlie prophets of An- 
tioch, and in that of St. ]\Iark Ijy his fdlov.sliip with both 
St. Peter and St. Paul, the substance, that is, of the first three 
Gospels. But when the changes of his life carried the fisher- 
man of Bethsaida to the Asiatic Churches he found the way 
r,!ui had prepared for him by the labors of the apostle of 

opened the ^ ^ •^ ^ 

lios\JC^ '''^ the Gentiles. The Gospel, communicated at Je- 
rusalem privately, and to a few, had been preached in its 

23 CLri3t and Christendom, pp. &4, 68. 
2« Wordsworth on the Canon, pp. 150, IGO. 



THE AVOKD OF GOD OPENED- 47 

fullness to those to whom that apostle had not shrunk (mani- 
fest ly contrasting himself with other teachers who did shrink) 
I'rom 'proclaiming the whole counsel of God;' to whom he 
had spoken of the blood shed upon the cross as the blood of 
(fod ; " who had heard, in the utterance of projAets, that 
God. or Christ as the Son of God, had been manifest in the 
flesh ; ^^ that m him dwelt the fulhiess of the Godhead bodily.^' 
Side by sidj with this preparation for the truth there were 
strange caricatm-es and denials of it. Some denied that the 
Christ had come in the ilesh,'^^ others that Jesus 

Fnlse views of 

was the Christ,'" or that he was indeed the Son ^'*'"''' 
of God,^" or that they had any fellowship with him, and 
through him with the Father. For them the Christ was a 
Jewish teacher only, or all true personality was lost in dreams 
and words. Here, then, was that which called for something 
more than the Church already had — for the witness, which 
none could bear so well as the disciple whom Jesus loved, to 
the reality of his Lord's human nature, his affection, his 
weariness, his tears — to what had been his own 

John presents 

teaching as to himself and his relation to his Fa- *''^ ''"' •^^^• 
ther, when that teaching reached its highest point and re- 
vealed the full glory of the truth. It might seem at first 
that the tie of a divine adoption, M'hich brouglit together St. 
John and tlie mother of the Lord, would have led hun to 
give with a rich and overflowing fullness a record ^viiy he saya 

nottiimrof the 

of the tacts of the nati\'ity, instead of leaving it nativity, 
m a profound silence ; yet the very omission is, I believe, 

2» Acts xx. 2S. 2« 1 Tim. ill, 16. 27 cj, j ^g 

8° 1 ,1vhn iv, 3. 2» 1 jyijii ii^ 22. 30 1 J jjiQ iv^ 15^ 



48 THE WORD OF GOD OPEXED. 

significant and instructive. The record of all that Christiana 
needed as to that history was current already in the Church. 
In the very depths of his symj)athy and reverence for the 
virgin mother his spirit would grow like hers, who ' kept ali 
these things, and pondered them in her heart.' A Church in 
which that history occupies in men's minds a position out of 
proportion to that which is assigned to it in the Gospel 
record, is on its w^ay to Mariolatry. With an anticipation, 
conscious or unconscious, of the dangers of a time to come, 
joiin gives St. John, leaving others to give the " pure milk " 

the strong ) & fo 1 

Gospel?^ '^^ which was needed for the life of spiritual child- 
hood, himself supplies the " strong meat," the solid food of 
thought, meeting the wants of those who are of full age — the 
cravings of man's heart and reason. If he names the mother 
of the Lord, whom he had known so well, it is to indicate in 
what entire independence of her control and guidance he had 
manifested his kingdom,^^ not as exalted to a throne left 
vacant in the heavens, a title wonderful and majestic, but as 
a mother, lonely and bereaved, needing the protection which 
it had been his duty and joy to give." 

Dr. Barnes, in his course of lectures upon the " Evidences 
of Christianity," remarking upon the humble origin, as com- 
pared with the influence of their writings, of the inspired 
authors, refers to the Apostle John as an illustration, and 
goes on to say : " He was a fisherman on the Lake of Tiberias 
when Jesus first saw him and called him to the work of an 
apostle. We have his Gospel, and we have his book of 
' Revelation,' and, beaiing in remembrance that he was a 

8 J John il, 4. 



THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 49 

fisherman^ we are to ask, Wliat would fishermen taken from 
the banks of the Delaware, from Marblehcad and Literature of 

St. Jolin the 

Gloucester, or from the Banks of Newfoundland, fishermaa. 
be likely to produce if called to compose a book on the 
subject of John's Gospel or the Book of Revelation ?" Dr. 
Barnes proceeds to quote from a discourse of Dr. Dwight, in 
which the same thought is eloquently developed : " The 
apostle John was born in an age when the philosophy of his 
country was a mere mass of quibbling, its religion a com- 
pound of pride and bigotry, and its worship a ceremonious 
parade. His lineage, his circumstances, and his employment 
were those of a fisherman. On what natural principle can it 
be accounted for that, like the sun breaking out of an 
evening cloud, this plain man, in these circumstances, should 
at an advanced age burst upon mankind with a flood of 
effulgence and glory ? Whence did it arise that in purity of 
precept, discernment of truth, and an acquaintance with the 
moral character of man and the attributes of his Maker, this 
peasant leaves Socrates, Plato, and Cicero out of sight and 
out of remembrance ? Do you question the truth of this 
representation ? The proof is at hand and complete. There 
is not a child of fifteen who, if possessed of the common 
education of this land, would not disdain to worship their 
gods or to embrace their religion. But Bacon and Boyle, 
Butler and Berkeley, Newton and Locke, Addison and John- 
son, Jones and Horsley, have submissively embraced the 
religion of St. John, and worshiped the God whose character 
he lias unfolded. Their systems have long since gone to the 

grave of oblivion. His has been animated with increasmg 

4 



50 THE WORD OF GOD OPE^'ED. 

vigor to the present hour, and will lire and flourish through 
endless ages. Their writings have not made one man vir- 
tuous. Ills have peopled heaven with the children of light. 
The seventeenth chapter of his Gospel, written as it is with 
the simplicity of a child, in grandeur of conception and 
in splendor of moral excellence triumphs with inexpressible 
gloiT over all the efforts of human genius, and looks down 
fi'om heaven on the proudest labors of infidelity." ^"^ 

There are thirteen of the epistles of Paul which bear his 
p J , . . name. His companions, Christian ministers, were 
his amanuenses, or witnessed his writing these 
letters.®' His epistles were sent to the Churches by private 
messengers.^^ Nine of them were addressed to public bodies, 
and he commanded them to be openly read. 

Peter, in his epistle, bears witness to the fact that they 

b ars ^'^^^ accounted as inspii'ed Scriptures,^^ and read 

to* \hei"'T/- with those of the Old Testament. Indeed, when 

spired au- 

thorit.v. Peter wrote his epistles, all the epistles of Paul 

had been written, and are, therefore, referred to under this 
title of Scriptures, a term only applied by the Jews to in- 
spired writings. "The conclusion, therefore, is, that these 
epistles are Paul's, (whose name they bear,) and that they 
have what Paul claimed for them, and what the early Church 
ascribed to them, inspired, and therefore canonical, authority. 
They are not the words which man teaches; they are the 
words of the Holy Ghost." 

" Quoted in Evidences of Christianity in the Nineteenth Century, p. 259. 

»3 1 Thess. i, 1 ; 2 Thess. i, 1 ; Rom, xvi, 22. 

* Ronoans xvi, 1. 3* 2 Peter iii, lo, 1& 



THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 51 

Tlie apostle who survived the others, the beloved John, died 
a^ the close of the first century. Within the period of a hu- 
man life after his death Papias, Inshop of Hierapolis, in Asia 
]\[inor, about A. T>. 120, and Irenjeus, bom about A. D. 140, 
and who died at the beojinnino^ of the next cen- 

'^ ^ Papias and 

tury, professing to record the testimony of the i'"^"^"^- 
generation before them, refer to the Gospels as we have them, 
as "the words or oracles of the Lord." ^^ Irenseus was bishop 
of the first Christian Chiu-ch at Lyons in Gaul, now France. 
He wrote a gi*eat work against the errorists of the day, and 
quoted from the Gospels, as admitted by all to be final 
authority. He quotes about four hundred passages from 
them. He also quoted from all the epistles, except Philemon 
and Hebrews, of which Dr. Lardner, in his work upon the 
"Credibility of the Scriptures," gives eighteen examples. 
Irenseus,^^ in his youth, sat at the feet of the aged Poly carp, 

38 Christ and Christendom, by E. H. Plumptre, p. 41. 

3T Westcott remarks in his " History of the Canon of the New Testament," 
"It is almost impossible for any one whose ideas of communication are suggested 
by the railway and the printing-press to understand l)ow far mere materia] 
hinderances must have prevented a speedy and unanimous settlement of the 
canon., The means of intercourse were slow and precarious. The multiplica- 
tion of manuscripts in remote provinces was tedious and costly. The common 
meeting-point of Christians was destroyed by the fall of Jerusalem, and from 
that time national Churches grew up around their separate centers, enjoying in 
a great measure the freedom of individual development, and exhibiting, often 
in exaggerated forms, peculiar tendencies of doctrine or ritual. As a natural 
consequence, the circulation of different parts of the New Testament for a while 
depended more or less on their supposed connection with specific forms of 
Christianity." After illustrating this statement, he goes on to say, "From t}»<> 
close of the second century the history of the canon is simple, and its proof is 
clear. It is allowed even by those who have reduced the genuine apostolic 
works to the narrowest limits, that from the time of Irena^us the New Testa* 
ment was composed essentially of the same books which we receive at present 



62 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 

a disciple of the apostle John. In a letter he thus most 
iren^us a affectingly alludes to his acquaintance with this 

disciple of 

poiycaip. pupil of the apostles: "I can recall the very 

place where Polycarp used to sit and teach, his manner of 
speech, his mode of life, his appearance, the style of his 
address tc the people, his frequent reference to St. John and 
to others who had seen our Lord ; how he used to repeat 
from memory their discourses which he had heard fi*om them 
concerning our Lord, his miracles and mode of teaching, and 
how, being instructed himself by those who were eye-wit- 
nesses of the Word, there was in all that he said a strict 
agreement with the Scriptures." ^^ What more interesting 
or satisfactory confirmation could we have than the testimony 
of this eminent Christian minister, but one generation re- 
moved from the apostles, of the estimation, as a divine 
record, in which our Scriptures of the New Testament were 
held? 

The learned and eloquent TertuUian, who lived at Carthage 
at the close of the second century, makes constant 

Tei-tullian. , , 

quotations from the Gospels. He says : " We 
lay this down for a certain truth, that the evangelic Scrip- 
tures have for their authors the apostles, to whom the work 
of publishing the Gospel was committed by the Lord him- 

and that they were regarded with the same reverence as is now shown to them.'' 
This able scholar then shows, by an exhaustive examination of such writings of 
the apostolical fathers as still exist, that from the age of the apostles themselves 
to this period of absolute certainty we have the most assuring testimony, aris- 
ing out of Constant quotations, that the present books of the New Testament 
same from the hands of the apostles of Christ. 
38 " "When were our Gospels written ?" Constantino Tischendorf, p. 77. 



THE WOED OF GOD OPENED. 53 

self. A,mong the apostles John and Matthew teach us faith, 
among the apostolical men Luke and Mark re- His testimony 

as to Gospels 

fresl It." ^^ He speaks with equal respect and and Epistles. 
positiveness of the epistles : " If you be willing to exercise 
your curiosity profitably in the business of your salvation 
visit the apostolical Churches, in which the very chau's" of 
the apostles still preside ; in which their veiy authentic 
lettera are recited, sounding forth the voice, and representing 
the countenance, of each one of them. Is Achaia near 
you? You have Corinth. If you are not far from Mace- 
donia, you have Philippi, you have Thessalonica. If you 
can go to Asia you have Ephesus ; but if you are near 
to Italy you have Rome, from whence we may also be easily 
satisfied." " 

Justin Martyr, who was bom not long after the death of 
the apostles, A. D. 130, and was acquainted with 

Justin Martyr. 

their immediate disciples, speaks often in his 
writings of the Gospels as of unquestioned authority, under 
the title of Memoirs of Christ, and says that the " apostles 
composed them." He also refers to the Acts, to nearly all 
the epistles, and to the Revelation. He also declares that it 
was a general practice to read the Gospels " at Speaks of u«e 

<=> ^ of Scnptmvs 

public worship in Christian assemblies every sembiles? ^^ 
Lord's day," and to discourse upon them. "We come to- 
gether," he says, " to fecoUect the divine Scriptures. We 
nourish oui faith, raise our hope, confirm our trust by the 
sacred word."*^ 

«9 Canon and Interpretation of the Scriptures, by Professor ATLcllancI, p. 5d 
•" Ibid. ♦! Canon and Interpretation, i>. 58. 



54 THE WORD OF GOD OPEXED. 

Some time between the first and second century the okl 

Syiiac version of the Bible, heretofore referred to, which has 

come down to us in a sound condition, was 

The, Syriac ' 

version. made/"^ The most ancient copies of it lacked 

Second Peter, Second and Third John, and probably James ; 
but with these exceptions it contains all the sacred writings 
found in the canonical Scriptures, and no other books. The 
old Italic versions were made in the same period. 

The Italic. 

These contain all the books of our collection. 
"When we come down to the third century we meet the 
testimony of that unequaled scholar and most faithful stu- 

*2 Of this version "Westcott remarks it " is assigned almost universally to the 
most remote Christian antiquity. ... If a conjecture may be allowed, 1 think 
that the various facts of the case are adequately explained by supposing that 
versions of separate books of the New Testament were first made and used in 
Palestine, perhaps within the apostolic age, and that shortly aiterward these 
were collected, revised, and completed at Edessa. Many circumstances com- 
bine to give support to this belief. The early condition of the Syrian Church, 
its wide extent, and active vigor, lead us to expect that a version of the Holy 
Scriptures into the common dialect could not have been long deferred; and the 
existence of an Aramaic Gospel (Matthew) was in itself likely to suggest the 
work. Differences of style, no less than the very nature of the case, point to 
separate translations of different books, and at the same time a certain general 
uniformity of character bespeaks some subsequent revision. I have ventured 
to specify the place at which I believe that this revision was made. Whatever 
may be thought of the alleged intercourse of Abgarus, king of Edessa, with our 
Lord, Edessa itself is signalized in early Church history by many remarkable 
facts. It was called the 'holy' and the 'blessed'' city; its inhabitants were 
said to have been brought over by Thaddeus in a marvelous manner to the 
Christian faith, 'and from that time forth' Eusebius adds, 'the whole people of 
Edessa has continued to be devoted to the name of Christ, exhibiting no ordi- 
narj' instance of the goodness of our Saviour.' In the second century it became 
the center of an important Christian school, and long afterward retained its 
pre-eminence among the cities of its province." — A General Survey of tite 
Uintory of the dinon of the Neio Testament. By Bbooke Fobs Wkstcott, 
p. D., p. 206. 



THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 55 

dent of the Scriptures for a lifetime, Origen, A. D. 230. 
He says of the Gospels, as we now accept them, oiipen on the 

New Testa- 

" They are received without dis^Dute by the n^ent. 
whole Church of God under heaven."" In another place he 
says, " Matthew sounds first mth his priestly trumpet in his 
Gospel ; Mark also, and Luke and John, sounded with their 
priestly trumpets. Peter likewise sounds aloud with the two 
trumpets of his epistles, James also, and Jude 5 and John 
sounds again with his trumpet in his ejjistles and the Reve- 
lation, and Luke also, once more relating the actions of the 
apostles. Last of all (in his list of books) conies Paul, 
and, sounding with the trumpet of liis. fourteen epistles, 
he threw down to the foundations the walls of Jericho, 
and all the engines of idolatry, and the schemes of the 
philosophers." *^ 

About the year A. D. 300 a learned, wealthy, and Chris- 
tian minister and book collector named Pam- 

Pamphilus. 

philus gathered every scrap of Christian litera- 
ture upon which he could lay his hands, and upon his death 
he gave this invaluable library to the Church at Csesarea in 
Palestine, where he lived, to be used by Eusebius, his pastor, 
during his life. He was inflamed with so great a love for 
sacred literature that he copied with his own hand the chief 
part of the works of Origen. His library is frequently men- 
tioned by ancient writers. Jerome found the works of Origen 
in this library. Out of this large and rare ma- 

Eusebius. 

terial Eusebius wrote his history of the Church 

during the preceding centmies, and authenticates the in- 

*' Canon and Interpretation, p. 55. 



56 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 

Bpired books wliich had been in use from the beginning. 
He includes all found in our present canon, and no others. 

Constantine the Great, the Roman emperor, -who was the 
^ ^ ^. contemporary of the Bishop of Caesarca, an«l 

Constantine a ^ i 5 

was an eager and delighted reader of the New 
Testament, was accustomed to read every day a portion of 
Scripture to his household, and to offer prayer. He wTote to 
Eusebius to supervise the preparation for him of fifty copies 
Fifty Greek ^^ ^^^ entire Greek Scriptures, and ordered two 
Sciiptures government w^acrons, under the sijecial charge of 

niH.le by Eu- ^^ » ' 1 o 

sebius. ^ deacon of the Chm-ch at Csesarea, to transport 

them when completed to Constantinople. These manu- 
scripts, which Eusebius caused to be executed promptly and 
Avith great pleasure, the empeior gave to the principal 
Churches to be read in the public w^orship. They were also 
transcribed for the use of other Chm'ches. To this soiu-ce, 
probably, we owe all our best manuscripts of the Greek Tes- 
tament, the Alexandrian, the Vatican, the Ephraim, and the 
Sinaitic, discovered by Tischendorf." 

Jerome in the same centurj^ {A.. D. 322,) with all the 

authorities of previous generations under his eye, i)repared 

his well-know^n Vulgate edition of the Bible, 

Jerome. 

which remains to this day as it came from his 
hand, save the introduction of the apocryphal books by the 
(youncil of Trent. 
Some bonks During the early centuries a few of the books 

of Ngw Tg^- 

lament iieid of the New Testament, such as the Epistles ol 

a while in sus- 
pense. James, Second Peter, and Second and Third John, 

** Origin and History of the Books of the Bible, By C. E, Stowe, D. P , p 55. 



THE WORD OF GOT) OPENED. 57 

aiid tlif! Revelation, were for a time Leld in doubt ; but after 
careful examination were received into the canon. The vei'y 
hesitation shown both confirms the genuineness of Hesitation an 

evidence ol 

these books (for they were only received after canonicity. 
careful examination) and increases our confidence in the di- 
vine authority of the others. None were received without 
unqualified apostolical origin. Certain works attributed to 
the early fathers were sometimes found connected Apocyphrai 

New Testu- 

with the inspii'ed manuscripts, as the so-called "lent. 
" Epistle of Barnabas " and a part of the " Pastor of Hennas " 
were found united with the Sinaitic manuscript of the Scrip- 
tures which Tischendorf found in the convent of Mount 
Sinai. These writings have never been received by any 
number of persons as inspired, and are of value only on ac- 
count of their early Christian origin. In the latter case they 
show the age of the manuscript with which they 

^ i^ J Use of these 

were bound, proving it to be one of the oldest ^"tii^ss. 
copies of the Septuagint, as having been made as early at 
least as the first half of the fourth century ; and by the con- 
trast of their contents they show the unapproachable author- 
ity, simplicity, and truth of the divine oracles as gathered 
into the present canon. The editor of the " Journal of 
Sacred Literature," B. H. Cooper, has just prepared an edi- 
tion of the apocryphal Gospels. He sa^a in his introduc- 
tion, " Before I undertook this work I never realized so 
completely the impassable character of the gulf which sep- 
arates the genuine Gospels from these." They originated 
long after the true Gospels were written, in the second or 
third century. They consist of idle and unfounded tradi 



58 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 

tioDS relating to the infancy, youth, and early manhv^od of 
our Lord, about which the word of God is silent. They are 
below contempt. Sacred scholars, from Irenseus down, have 
denounced them.*^ 

The first manuscript version of the whole Bible in the 
English language was made by John Wiclif A. D. 1380. 
First English Its circulation was limited by the great labor 

manuscript of 

the Bible. and expense of transcribing it, as the art of 

printing had not yet begun to realize the Pentecostal miracle 
of tongues, but it was an engine of wonderful power. It was 
the first morning light ushering in the full day of the 
Refomaation. 

The first printed copy of any portion of the Scriptures in 
ed^tiorf of^the ^^^^ English tonguc was published by William 
piish. " Tyndale about the beginnmg of the sixteenth 

century. Unable, through persecution, to accomplish this 
work rit home he went to Germany, and there made his 
version, not from the Latin Vulgate, as his pred- 
'^ ®' ecessors had done, but from the original Greek 

and Hebrew. He issued first the New Testament and after- 
ward the Pentateuch. About the commencement of the 

*5 "It is of the utmost importance," says Westcott, "to remember that the 
canon was never referred in the first ages to the authority of fathers or councils. 
The appeal was made not to the judgment of men, but to that of Churches, and 
of those particularly which were most nearly interested in the genuineness of 
separate writings. And thus it is found that while all the canonical books are 
supported by the concurrent testimony of all, or at least of many, Churches, no 
more than isolated opinions of private men can be brought forward in support 
of the authority of any other writings, for the New Testament Apocrypha can 
hold a place by the side of the apostolic books only so long as our view is lim- 
ited to a narrow range. A comprehensive survey of their general relations shows 
the real interval by which they are separated." — Canon of N. T., p. 443. 



THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 59 

year 1535 he was beguiled from tlie city of Antwerp, w^here 
lie had found protection, by an English emissary of the 
Koman Church, and Avas seized and imprisoned in the castle 
of Vilvorde, near the city of Brussels. After a wearisome 
imprisonment, and vain efforts to secure the interposition 
of the English court, on the 6tli of October, 

° ' ' Eurninj; of 

1536, he w^as led forth to be burned. His last Tyudaie. 
words, " uttered with fervent zeal and in a loud voice, were 
these : ' Lord^ open the king of EnglantVs eyesP " 

For ten years he had been an exile from his home, suffer- 
ing in a foreign land, from poverty and persecution, distresses 
that only the Christian faith can enable a man to endure, and 
finally gave his body to be burned, that he might bestow 
upon all speaking his native tongue the pure written word 
of God. Such a result, however, was worth all it cost : he 
" received his reward.'' " His occupation in this earth," 
says Froude, " was gone. His eyes saw the salvation for 
which he had longed, and he might depart to his jDlace." ** 

Soon after Tyndale w^as thrown into prison an edition of 
the entire Bible, containing the portions previously published 
by him, and probably completed from his manuscripts, was 
commenced by his friend and fellow-exile, John John Rosei-s 

publishes his 

Rogers, and was published in 1537 under the bS" ""^ "'^ 
assumed name of Thomas Mathew, and was hence called 
Mathew's Bible. But the editor of it claimed for his friend 
its authorship by inserting his initials in ornamental letters 
(W. T.) at the close of the Old Testament. Of the New 
Testament there could be no doubt as to its origin, as it had 

«• History of England, vol. ill, p. 87. 



60 THE WORD OF GOD OrEXED. 

long since l)een published/' The editor discloses himself by 
'ai)i)ending his initials (J. R.) at the close of a preliminary 
exhortation to the study of the Holy Scriptures. 

So great a change had been produced in influential quar- 
ters in England during these memorable years that Lord 
Cromwell, who was prime minister of England, and also 
" vicegerent " of King Henry VHI. in all ecclesiastical mat- 
ters, together with Archbishop Cranmer, persuaded the king, 
before the first edition of Tyndale's Bible was exhausted, to 
obtain from Francis I., of France, permission to 

Cnverdale's 

^^^^^- jDrint an edition of the English Bible in Paris, aa 

the work could be better done there than in England. 
AI)out the time of Tyndale's imprisonment, according to 
Fi'oude, but two years later, according to previous authori- 
ties, Miles Coverdale, a member of the same Cambridge 
circle which had given birth to Cranmer, to Latimer, to 
Barnes, and to the Scotch Wishart, silently went abroad with 
a license from Cromwell, and, with Tyndale's help, collected 
and edited the various books of Scripture." As the Inquisi- 
tion stopped their work in Paris, Cromwell ordered his 
agents to bring the tyjjes and presses, and even the French 
printers, to England. In 1536, according to Froude, it was 
p-ublished in London, was dedicated to Henry VIII., and the 
clergy were ordered not only to permit, but to exhort and 
encourage all men to resort to it and read. " In this act," 
says the eloquent historian whose dates we have followed, 
"was laid 'he foundation-stone on which the wiiole later 

♦' Popular History of the English Bible, by Mrs. U, C. Conant. 
*^ Froude's History of England, vol. iil. 



THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 61 

Instor? of England, civil as well as ecclesiastical, has been 
reared." Of the effect of its publication upon the people, 
Strype, in his "Life of Cranmer," says, it was a jubilee among 
the poor of England when, for the first time in the national 
history, they could listen from Sabbath to Sab- Effect of the 

puljlication of 

bath to "the sweet and glad tidings of the the Bible. 
Gospel " without the fear of prisons, the scourge, and tlie 
stake. " It was wonderful," he says, " to see with what joy 
this book of God was received, not only among the learneder 
sort, and those that were noted for lovers of the Reforma- 
tion, but generally all England over, among all the vulgar 
and common people, and with what greediness God's word 
was read, and what resort to jjlaces where the reading 
of it was. Everybody that could bought the book and 
busily read it, or got others to read it to them if they could 
not themselves, and divers more elderly people learned to 
read on purpose. And even little boys flocked among the 
rest to hear portions of the Holy Scriptures read." Wliat a 
blessed preparation was this for the bloody persecutions that 
afterward tried their faith in God's ^Titten word ! 

Of this version of the Bible Froude says : " Though since 
that time it has been many times revised and altered, we 
may say that it is substantially the Bible with which we arc 
all familiar. The peculiar genius — if such a word may ly* 
permitted — which breathes through it, the mingled tender- 
ness and majesty, the Saxon simplicity, the pre- ^^.^^^^j 
ternatural grandeur, imequaled, unapproached in i=> ^t^'sion. 
the attempted improvements of modern scholars; all are 
here, and bear the impress of the mind of one man, William 



62 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 

Tyndale. Lying while engaged in that great office under the 
shadow of death, the sword above his head and ready at any 
moment to fall, he worked under circumstances alone, per- 
haps, truly worthy of the task which was laid upon him ; his 
spirit, as it were, divorced from the world, moved in a purer 
element than common air." ^^ 

By the commencement of the next century numerous edi- 
tions of the Bible had been made. Even the. Romanists, 
finding that they could not put a stop to the circulation of 
the Scriptures in the language of the people, felt 

TIi.e_ Douay ^ ^ «= => r 1 5 

e ition. j^ necessary to have a version of their own. In 

1582 they issued the New Testament at Rheims, and in 
1610 the Old Testament at Douay. This forms the famous 
Douay edition of the Bible, a fine version in some respects, 
but with its daring changes to meet the requisitions of a 
fallen Church. 

Martin Luther, the great German Reformer, who was born 
in 1483 and died in 1546, has been called the 

Martin Luther. 

father of modern biblical interpretation, for he 
taught by precept and examj)le that the Bible in the originaJ 
tongues is final authority in all religious questions, and thai 
private judgment, and not the decision of councils, is to be- 
allowed to determine its sense. He insisted with charac- 
Father of bib- teristic eamestness upon a grammatical and 

lical interpre- 
tation, philological mode of interpretation of the lan- 
guage of Scripture, rather than bending the word of G-cd to 
the preconceived opinions and theories of any religious 
schools. All the success that has since been secured in the 

*» Froude, vol. iii, p. 87. 



THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 63 

mvesiigation of the exact meaning of tlie sacred records hag 
arisen from following the example which he set in this 
regard. The noblest work of this noble man was the trans- 
lation of the Scrii^tures into the German language.^" Tlie 
study of the Bible was a life-long passion with him. " "Were 
I but a great poet," he was accustomed to say, "I would 
write a magnificent poem on the utility and efiicacy of the 
divine word." "His judgment on the different books of the 
Bible," "Westcott remarks, " as given in detail in his prefaces, 
are so full of life, and so characteristic of the man, that they 
can never lose their interest ; and, as a whole, they foi'm an 
important chapter in the history of the Bible." ^' 

The present vereion of the English Bible was commenced 
in 1607 and completed in 1611, although many 

^ ? o J Authorized 

small changes and improvements have been version. 
made in the text in subsequent editions. It was undertaken 
in the reign of James I. upon the recommendation of Dr. 
Reynolds, an influential clergyman and bishop of Executed by 

forty-seven 

Norwich, of Puritan spiipathies. By the king's learned men. 
command forty-seven learned men entered upon the execution 
of the work. They were divided into six companies, two of 
which sat at Westminster, two at Oxford, and two at Cam- 
bridge. All previous editions, with all available manuscripts 
of original versions, were before them. They followed as 
closely as the authorities they consulted would admit, by 
command, the edition then in use, and called the " Bishop's 
Bible," because Archbishop Parker had supervised its prepa- 
ration. 
»• Kitto's Biblical Cyclopedia. •' The Canon of the New Testamont, p. 429. 



64 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 

Of the result of their labors the rcditor of the " Annotated 

Paragraph Biljle " remarks : " It would be too much to affirm 

that it is not susceptible of improvement; but 

Character of 

our version. -^g general excellence is attested by the fact, that 
with all the diversities of opinion on religious subjects, and 
the controversies which have been carried on between differ- 
ent denominations of Christians in our countiy, all have 
agreed in appealing to the same version, and none have, in 
any matters of consequence, objected to it." 

The revival of letters upon the introduction of the art of 
Effect of the printing, especially the quickening influences of 

discovery of 

printing. the Reformation and the influential example of 

Luther; the appeal from a professedly infallible Church to 
the inspired records of truth; the differences of doctrinal 
opinions in the Reforaied Churches, all seeking their justifi- 
cation in the letter of Scripture ; the searching examination 
given to the mythical fables, forming the beginning of all 
profane history ; the extraordinary advances made in all the 
physical sciences, some of them apparently showing dis- 
crejjancies and contradictions in the statements of the Bible ; 
altogether turned with great zeal the thoughts and studies 
of scholars, both friendly and unfriendly, to the original 
sources of the records of a divine revelation. Impelled by 
the two strongest of human passions, hatred and love, the 
Examination work has been going on until the present day, 

of til e original 

Bources. From ancient libraries, institutions of learning, 

rabbinical schools, and convents, gathered with the most 
persistent and patient labor, every scrap of manuscript con- 
taining the whole or portions of the various versions of the 



THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 65 

Bible, which we have already described, has been examined 
and coUated; every site of the occurrence of sciiptural 
incidents has l)cen visited; human history has been re- 
viewed ; the hierogh'phics of Egypt and the sublime 
revelations of the earth's strata have been made to peld 
up theu* long-hidden secrets in these extended investiga- 
tions. When this sifting and exhausting ex- The effect of 

'^ ^ this iDve?M- 

amination of the received Scriptures com- atfirst/^'*'^'^ 
menced many good men looked uix)n it TN'ith anxiety, fearing 
that the popular confidence in the genuineness and purity 
of the text might l^e destroyed. Their fears were unfounded. 
The Bible, like pure gold, only shone the brighter after the 
fiery trial. "A wonderful divine ordination,'"* 

•^ Tliose fean 

says Olshausen, " has preserved it to us without ""f"""'^^*- 
any essential injury tlirough a succession of dark ages. It ex- 
erts at the present day upon all minds receptive of its spirit 
the same blessed, sanctifying influence which the apostles 
claimed for it eighteen centuries ago. How, then, can these 
sacred books suflfer fi-om careful historical inquiry respecting 
their origin ? Investigation must rather serve to confirm 
and fully establish belief in their purity and genumeness." ** 
When the learned Professor Bengel, of Tubingen, announced 
the fortv thousand various readings which had 

Variations jf 

been obtained from the different manuscript ^°^'^^- 
coi)ics of the New Testament collated, it was feared at fii-st 
that an entirely new version v,ould be required ; but it was 
found upon examination that the sense of the authorized 
edition was scarcely altered by them all ; no previously held 

•* 01shaasen''s Commentaries, voL i, p. 30. 
5 



66 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 

or contested doctrine was affected in the slightest measure, 

and onl}' one important passage, the well-known seventh 

verse of the fifth chapter of the First Epistle of 

No doctrine ^ ^ 

affected. John, relating to the three witnesses, was found 

to be sustained by so few original versions as to be marked 
unreliable. But the doctrine of the triune personality of 
God is not affected by the loss of this proof-text. Upon the 
result of these careful collations of original authorities 
Olshausen remarks : "^Now that all the manuscripts have 
been read and accurately collated, there is no 

No further -^ ' 

^^^^' further occasion for fear that somewhere or other 

s<.)metliing new may be discovered which will thrust the old, 
loved Bible aside." ^^ Some of these " various readings," 
considered of the most value, have been introduced into side 
columns in our reference Bibles, and sometimes, although 
rarely, they shed considerable light upon the text. 

Of the fifty thousand various readings which at the 
The n!\\xtn' «vf i>resent time have been collected, the most of 

tliese varia- 

*'"»»■ them are simply differences in orthograjjhy, 

punctuation, or a change in a particle, as and for also ; and 
in the tenses, numbers, and cases of the words. Says Prof. 
Norton, in his work upon the genuineness of the Gospels : 
" It seems strange that the text of Sliaksj)eare, which has 
Prof. Norton bccu iu cxistencc less than two hundred and 

upon the " va- 

fngs/' '^^^ fifty J^ears, should be far more uncertain and 
corrupt than that of the New Testament, now over eighteen 
centuries old, during nearly fifteen of which it existed only 
in manuscript. The industiy of collators and commentators 
*'^ Olshaiisen's Commentaries, vol. 5, p. 80. 



THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 67 

indeed has collected a formidable array of ' various read- 
ings ' in the Greek text of the Scriptures, but the number of 
those which have any good claim to be received, and which 
also seriously affect the sense, is so small that they may 
almost be counted upon the fingers. With perhaps a dozen 
or twenty exceptions, the text of every verse in the New 
Testament may be said to be so far settled by the general 
consent of scholars that any dispute as to its meaning must 
relate rather to the intei*pretation of the words than to any 
doubts respecting the words themselves. But in every one 
of Shakspeare's thirty-seven plays there are probably a 
hundred readings still in dispute, a large proportion of which 
materially affect the meaning of the passage in which they 
occur." 
We may, then, answer the question with confidence, that 

we have in our English Bibles the revelation 

Question an 

of God's will as it was given to the holy men ^^*'^^^' 
that received it. 



68 THE WORD OF GOD OrENET). 



CHAPTER IV. 

INTEEPRETATION : GENERAL OBSEKVATIONS. 

rPHE term Tiermeneutics, fi'om the Greek word used by 

-*- the apostle Paul, and translated the ^interpretation of 

tongues,"* is the title used to designate the 

Hermeneutics. 

science or art of interpretation. 
The grand office of biblical interpretation is to discover 
Office of bib- the exact teaching of the Holy Spirit in the 

lical interpre- 
tation, words uttered by inspired men. It is not its 

province to inquire how far any ]3reconceived opinion finds 

justification in the Scriptures of truth, but simply and always 

" what the Spirit of Christ which was in them did signify." " 

There are many peculiarities in the construction and char- 

„ ,. .^. acter of the book which render its interpretation 

Peculiarities ^ 

deiins its in- difficult, and require the closest and most careful 

terpretation 

difficult. study. Its first publication in the idioms of 

tons^ues foreisTn to our own — its constant allusion to customs 
unfamiliar to our days — its singular varieties of style, histori- 
cal, poetical, prophetical — its sublime supernatural revelations 
of truth and spiritual life — all together make it a volume 
which study can never exhaust, and which it can never enter 
upon without the most enriching results.^ 

» 1 Cor. xii, 10. «! Peter i, 11. 

3 Dr. Stowe remarks in his inaugural address upon the " Interpretation of the 
Scriptzzres," when he entered upon his duties as a professor at Andover: "■ We 



THE WOKD OF GOD OPENED. 69 

If one should ask why a book that contains truths so vital 
to our present and eternal well-beinoj has not ,^^, ^ ^ , 

^ ° Why has God 

been given to man in a style so clear and simple to^e'Vo diffi- 
cult of _ coin- 
that an ordinary mind could comjDrehend it upon pi*ii>ension ? 

the bare reading, and why it should be given to him as an 

have scarcely anything in common with them (the Jewish people) except a 
common humanity, and the same Deity; a common depravity, and the need of 
the same method of salvation ; and it is precisely because we have those most 
important things in common with them that the Bible on these topics is so 
plain and intelligible to the humble, believing, prayerful inquirer. We have 
the same sun and moon and stars, and yet we can hardly be said to have the 
same heavens over our heads or the same earth beneath our feet, so different 
were their skies and fields and forests from ours. Instead of being like them 
in habits of life and modes of thought, our inner and outer life is as wholly 
unlike that of the ancient Hebrews as a modern cotton factory is unlike 
Solomon's temple, and the difference is very much of the same kind. In 
the application of science and art, for example, to the uses and conven- 
iences of life they were infinitely behind us. In contrast with our nu- 
merous facilities for journeying and transportation, the Hebrews knew 
nothing of a rmid (1 Sam. xxvii, 10) as we understand the word road; 
they had no idea of any such thing as a bridge, and there is but one 
Instance in the whole Hebrew history of so great a convenience as a ferry- 
boat, and that Mas in the latter part of the reign of their greatest king, and is 
alluded to as a luxury for the king's household, (2 Sam. xix, 18.) The disrafl 
for spi n.ing and the loom worked by hand were all the machinery they had 
for manufacturing cloth ; of sugar and coffee and tea they had never heard ; hair 
combs and pocket knives, and even pockets, were quite unknown to them ; 
wheelbarrows and threshing machines, (:heir wheat was trodden out by oxen, 
or beaten out by sticks.) steam-engines and carding machines and nail factories 
they had never formed an idea of; paper and quills, steel pens and wafers, they 
had never used; and instead of our stereotype plates and power presses, striking 
off a whole Bible in two minutes, they had no way of making books but by a 
process which for facilitj* and speed of writing was very much like engraving 
on copperplate, or cutting letters on a tombstone. Their very language and 
their mode ol using language was in almost everything the reverse of ours. 
Their primitive words are verbs instead of nouns ; they gave names to actions 
before they gave names to things; then- books begin where ours end, and when 
we read their writings we always seem to ourselves to be reading backwar<i 
rbwy wrote consonants only, and had ao use for voM'els. What we e.vi/resa 



70 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 

unexjlored mine, with its hidden \eins of gold and silver, 
long eluding the sight of the seeker after truth ? the answer 
need not be, reverently, "Even so,. Father, for so it seemed 
good in thy sight," alone ; but other reasons at once suggest 
themselves to the thoughtful mind. The Bible was intended 
Intended to to be a study for man for all time. It reveals 

be a stu(iy for 

all ages. God. Every new discovery of the meamng and 

force of revelation is a fresh revelation of some aspect of the 
divine character. The necessity of constant study holds 
every generation in close connection with the divine mind, 
and becomes the medium through which God constantly 
communes with our race. 

A wonderful analogy we notice here between the revela- 
tions of God in the natural world and in his Scriptures. 
God has made all life a discipline. All our per- 

Analogy with 

human hfe. gonal wants Can only be supplied by labor and 
care and thought, and even faith, a process which, although 
it is wearisome, is wholesome, for it is the great school in 
which God develops and trains human minds. What is in- 
What is vital dispensable to life lies near to us: but its com- 

is near to us. 

ceaied^.^^ ^°"* forts and luxuries are to be sought for as hidden 
treasures. Every year man is discovering by study some new 
element in the divine economy which will add to his enjoy- 
ment. How many years the world lived without a knowl- 

dii'ectly by a simple noun, they often designate by a picture ; as for example, 
the pupil of the eye, because it always reflects a little image of the person 
looking into it, they call it the little man, the eye's davghter. They loved to 
give utterance to their thoughts in symbols and in types, in allegories and 
parables and riddles, and all their literature abounds with expedients of thifl 
kmiV—Bibliotheca Saora, 18^3, p. 45. 



THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 71 

edge of the hidden powers of electricity and steam, and how 
long men have walked over mines of gold and silver, and 
near mountains of coal and rivers of oil, and sailed over the 
most precious pearls ! And the world is not yet exhausted, 
neither will it be until it is refined in its final fires.* Thus is 
it with the Scriptures. Suflicient relating to the . . 

'^ ° This is true of 

salvation of the soul to lead a penitent man to ti'« Scriptures, 
forgiveness and to the door of heaven can be found in all 
parts of Scripture, and he that runneth may read. If every 
portion of the Bil)le should be lost but the fifteenth chapter 
of St. Luke, and the third chapter of St. John, we should still 
have the whole plan of salvation — the love of God, the atone- 
ment of Christ, the repenti^ig sinner, and the changed heart , 
but beyond this there are still undiscovered continents of 
truth, facilities for the sanctification of human life, treasures 
of unutterable price hidden away in the stores of revelation, 
not to mock the earnest seeker, but to reward his zeal and 
add to his spiritual wealth. The prayer offered 
a thousand years ago still lingers upon devout i>»vid. 

* Says the author of Ecce Deus, " God's first book, the book of nature, apparently 
leaves much of life unprovided for ; yet as men acquire skill to turn over the 
ponderous pages they find that every want has been anticipated. Adam would 
hardly know the vvorld of wliich he was the £rst occupant, yet the primal 
forces and characteristics of nature are just the same as when he kept the gar- 
den of Eden. Modern civilization can hardly understand how men could sub- 
sist in ancient times, yet the earth abideth forever without appendix or sup- 
plement. "What was wanting was the faculty of interpretation. Men saw the 
water, but could not interpret it into steam ; they saw the lightning, but mis- 
took it for an enemy ; they saw the sun, but could not fully interpret all he 
signified by the eloquence of light. The human power of interpretation grows, 
) et after it has grown it often forgets both the process and the fact The vol- 
ume of nature is precisely to-day as God published it, but the latter readers ar« 
more shai p-sighted and inquisitive than the former." — Page 24. 



72 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 

lips : " Oj)eii thou mine eyes, that I may behold woudrcus 
thinsjs out of thy law." * 

Dr. SchaiT, remarking upon the New Testament and its lan- 
guage, says that the latter is the Macedonian Greek as spoken 
by the Jews of the dispersion in the time of Christ, and adds : 
^' The most beautiful language of heathendom and the ven- 
erable language of the Jews are here combined, baptized with 
Pr. schaflfon the Spirit of Christianity, and made the picture 

laiii-'UHfje and 

the Bible. "^ of silver for the golden apple of the eternal truth 
of the Gospel. And, indeed, the style of the Bible in general 
is singularly adapted to men of every class and grade of 
culture, affording the child the simple nourishment for its 
religious wants, and the profoundest thinker inexhaustible 
matter of study. The Bible is not simply a popular book, 
but a book of all naticms, and for all societies, classes, and 
conditions of hien." ^ 

Locke has well said : " Men have reason to be well satisfied 
Locke upon with what God has done for them, since he has 

tliis feature of 

omy"*' *^^^'^ given whatever is necessary for convenience of 
life and infonnation of virtue, and has j)ut within their reach, 
if they are willing to make search — to which, however, he 
will not compel them — a comfortable provision for this life, 
and the way that leads to a better. We shall not have much 
need to complain of the narrowness of our minds if we will 
employ them about what may be of use to us ; and it will be 
an unpardonable as well as childish peevishness if we under- 
value the advantages of our knowledge, and neglect to improve 
it because there are some things that are set out of its reach." 
• Psalm cxix, 18. « History of the Christian Church, vol. i, p. 93. 



THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 73 

" Has not the natural world," says Goulburn,^ " wondrous 

tilings, many and inexhaustible — wonders on a large scale, 

and wonders on a small ? First, it has beautiful Nature as ap- 
parent to the 
hindscaj)es, which it asks no effort to admire, ^ye. 

which we have only to open our eyes and behold. And, 

though landscapes vary in beauty, there are perhaps fewer 

than we imagine in which a contemplative eye can discover 

notliing of the beautiful. As it is with Scripture, so it is 

with nature ; familiarity with it has a tendency to blunt our 

perceptions of its beauty. It does not follow from hence 

that the portions of nature which lie in our immediate 

vicinity contain no wonders. Wonders there may be in 

abundance, but they only reveal themselves to those who are 

at the pains of investigating them. As the rich wonders hid- 
den under 
man lazily rolls along in his carriage, and indo- "«>■ f^^t. 

lently complains of the tameness of the landscape, there may 

be wondrous things in the geological strata beneath his feet : 

fossil animals; evidences of volcanic agency. There may be 

gold dust in the streams ; nay, as at Cracow, it may happen 

that in the earth's bowels there shall be lofty vaulted palaces 

of rock salt, which apjjL'ar by the light of flambeaux like so 

many crystals, or precious stones of various colors, casting a 

luster which the eye can scarcely bear. A slight amount of 

research and exertion would reach and discover these things, 

and would turn a residence in an otherwise tame country 

into a perpetual feast of cuiiosity. Then there \„ , 

^ ^ *' Wonders of 

are the wonders to which the telescope opens *^^ ♦'^^^^^^^p®- 
our eyes. It reveals to us worlds lit up by a common lamp 

^ Devotional Study of the Scriptures, page 47. 



74 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 

with our own, several of them larger than our earth ; and 
numbers of flaming balls scattered in brilliant profusion over 
the mivlnight sky, which, perchance, serve as suns of other 
systems. The astronomer will patiently watch for hours, ex- 
posed to the night-dews and the cold, to ascertain the truth 
in regard to some phenomenon of the heavens. There are the 
Wonders of HO less marvelous wonders of the microscope. By 

the micro- 
scope, this is revealed to us a plurality of worlds in the 

most contracted limits, as the telescope had revealed to us a 

plurality in the vast reaches of space. All this admits of a 

close application to the Scriptures. The only difference is that 

These iiius- the woudrous tilings of God's law are greater 

trations ai>- 

ture.*° ^^^^' ^^^ more marvelous by far than anything which 
meets us in his works, for we are told that he has magnified 
his word above all his name, that is, above everything con- 
nected with him. Scripture has its more interesting and less 
interesting districts as they appear upon the surface. It has 
its sublime chapters upon the creation, its unequaled psalms, 
and its soul-moving parables. It has, also, its less imposing 
surfaces, its flats and levels, its apparent wastes. It has its 
long genealogical chapters, with no biographical sketches to 
enlighten them. It has its protracted ceremonial details, 
and it has its tangled brushwood and wild jungles in the 
perplexities which some of the prophetical writings seem to 
present, and which perhaps are never designed to be wholly 
cleared. It does not follow that these less interesting pas* 
Ricn mines sages Contain nothing beneath the surface worthy 

beneath the 

surface. of research, and which will abundantly repay 

investiofation. The richest mines have been found beneath the 



THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 7o 

most sterile and desolate tracts of earth. Every part of 
Scripture contains some lesson that subserves a u«eful pur- 
pose-in the system of divine grace. They may lie hidden very 
deeply with the design of exciting curiosity and research. 
* It is the glory of God to conceal a thing ; but the honor ol" 
kings is to search out a matter.' " 

Who does not see at once that this great variety, and often 
difficulty, and sometimes mystery, add to the Add to at- 

tractiveness 

attractiveness of Scripture, and occasion the of Scripture, 
necessity for that study and thought, without which its 
truths would avail us but little ? An ordinaiy author is soon 
exhausted, and loses his power over us; but the Bible never, 
if thoughtfully read.® Without mental exertion a man may 

* Abundant testimony of the power of the Scriptures to reward with 
the highest form of intellectual and spiritual enjoyment their careful and 
Ijrotracted study might be given. At a late Bible anniversary Rev. Dr. 
Poabody, preacher and pastor at Harvard College, remarked: "I rejoice 
that we have a record of revelation that demands study, and a life-long 
study. It is one of the marks of the divine inspiration which fills this 
book, that its study demands, and crowns, and exceeds a life-time. If 1 
had my life to live over again, I would be willing to devote the solid 
portion of my days to the study of St. Paul's Epistles. I should feel that 
in these alone there is work enough and joy enough for a life-long scholar- 
ship." And he adds, " Let it not be forgotten, that as the sweetest pastures 
are found among the rocks, so among those crags and clifi's in which is 
the hiding of the divine wisdom, among the least intelligible portions of the 
divine word, are found scattered those sweet and precious sentences on which 
the devout feed, and which have been the greatest of boons to generation aftei 
generation of the saints. One of the surest tokens to my mind of the divine 
Inspiration of this book is the fact that strewn all over it are those passages of 
concentrated, condensed power, in which the sacred writers put into half a 
dozen words what would be weakly expressed in half a dozen p^es or chapters.'" 

" Where is the uninspired book," writes the late venerable Dr. William 
ifarsh, " of which one can say, ' I never tire of reading it ?' There is a book 
which I think I must have read fifty times, and I have n<>t done with it yet 
In a sense. I doubt whether I shall have done with it in time, for it is in cter 



76 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 

admire Scri2)ture, even as witliout bodily exertion he may 
Man must ex- admire nature. If, however, he would profit by 

ert hiiiijielf to , , , . , i • i f t 

be able to use nature s resources, he must exert himseli, dig- 

the lesources 

of nature. giug the Well, felling the timber, building the 

house, sinking the mine ; so he must operate upon the cruile 
material of Scripture, and look into its secret recesses with 
the energy and perseverance that he puts forth to meet his 
Illustration of bodily wants. In the Old Testament we read 

truth hidden 

in Scripture. what scems to be only a merciful provision 
for a patient burden-beaiing beast : " Thou shalt not muz- 

nity we shall know fully its wondrous contents." The eminent Dr. Constan- 
tine Tischendorf, still blessing the Church with his untiring labors, has 
employed all his erudition, and all his time for more than twenty years, upon 
the textual study of the New Testament. When he discovered, after extraor- 
dinary endurance and perseverance, the ancient manuscript of the New Testa- 
ment, some one thousand five hundred years old, in the convent of Mount 
Sinai, he hurried to his chamber, that, as he said, '''he might give way to the 
transports of joy which he felt." " I knew that I held in my hand," he adds, 
" the most precious biblical treasure in existence ; a document whose age and 
importance exceeded that of all the manuscripts which I had ever examined 
during twpnty yedrn" -stady of the subject. I cannot now, I confess, recall all 
the emotions which I felt in that exciting moment with such a diamond in my 
possession. Though my lamp was dim, and the night cold, I sat down at once 
to transcribe the ' Epistle of Barnabas,' " which was bound up with this editiou 
of the New Testament, and of invaluable service in the argument demonstra- 
ting the genuineness and authenticity of our present New Testament cah<*n. 
Honors from crowned heads and ancient universities, and even from Piu^ IX. 
himself, fell thickly upon him when his great work of publishing a fac-similo 
of the manuscripts was completed. But he mentions with undisguised prido 
his greater satisfaction with the remark of an old man, " himself of the high- 
est distinction for learning :" " I would rather have discovered this Sinaitic 
manuscript than the koh-i-noor of the queen of England." How noble his 
remark : " That which I think more highly of than all these flattering distinc- 
tions is the conviction that Providence has given to our age, in which attacks 
iiu Christianity are so common, the Sinaitic Bible, to be to us a full and clear 
light as to what is the word written by God, and to assist us in defending the 
truth by establishing its authcntio form." 



THE WOKD OF GOD OPENED. 77 

zle the ox wlien he treadeth out the com"* This 
truth it certainly teaches, but mthin its folds we are 
taught by an inspired apostle is wrapped up an eternal 
pilnciple of equity — that " the laborer is worthy of hia 
1 eward." '** 

The Bible constantly presents general principles, absolute 
commandments, and living examples ; but it never applies 
these principles to human actions as recorded upon its pages. 
This is left to the enlightened conscience and 

Man must ap- 

thoughtftd judgment of the reader. It is His P>y i^""'^i»'i*^=*- 
will that we should meditate upon all Scripture, and make 
ourselves their moral application. The Bible records the 
pious obedience and sunple and singular faith of Xoah, but 
makes no comment upon it: and it relates the ^„ , ,. 

■•■ ' Illustration of 

. x» 1 • •!_ 1 11- fjit^t and char- 

story 01 his shame when overcome by his appe- acter without 

application of 

tite, without a note of warning. Abraham is ™"i'ai- 
sometimes called the friend of God, and is styled in Scripture 
the " fiither of them that believe." His marvelous simplicity 
of character and unfaltering trust in God are fully described 
in the sacred word, and, without note or comment or excuse, 
the stories of his deceit are also written out. God's abhor- 
rence of Jacob's falsehood is not stated in the sacred narra- 
tive, neither his judgment as to a plurality of wives, it is left 
to be gathered from the after-fortunes of the patriarch, the 
retributions that fell upon him in his fears of Esau, and in 
his overwhelming domestic troubles. It was only in his 
later years that his life was gilded with gleams of comfort.'^ 
David is said, without reserv^ation, to be a " man after God's 

Deuteroromy xxv, 4. *"! Timothy v, 18. i' Goullurn. 



78 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 

own heart ;" ^^ but what frightful sins the hand of inspiration, 
T. .^ ,,. without hesitation, records against him. God 

David and his ' ^ 

^'"^' leaves the strange extremes of his life for us to 

reconcile. Not one word of apology does he offer. David in 
Scripture is not presented as a saint, not even when judged 
by the defective standard of the times in which he lived. 
As compared with Saul, who refused to carry out God^s com- 
mands, he was a chosen, faithful, and successful instrument ; 
in this respect simply he was after God's heart. His sins 
were shocking, and the temporal retribution that followed 
fearful. His humility, his penitence, and his trust were as 
marvelous as his human weaknesses. In recording the end 
of Judas, where a human writer could hardly have 

Judas. 

failed to remark upon the added guilt of suicide 
and the steps which led to it, the reader is left to draw his 
ovm lessons as to the awful risk of sinning against high 
privileges, and constantly violating the convictions of con- 
science. 

All these lessons require thought and study to elicit. 

The distinction between simple attention to the literal 
^. .. ^. word of inspiration and careful thought and 

Distinction ^ * 

tentlon and study upou the truth which the Holy SjDiiit 

tlioujrht illus- 

tiiited. seeks to teach us by it has been happily illustrated 

by Dr. Goulburn. Attention to any book or discourse is that 
which serves, and which is necessary to enable us to retain 
the various points it sets forth in our memory. For example, 
we read the beautiful narrative of the Syroplioenician moth- 
er's appeal to our Lord in behalf of her daughter. Attention, 

12 1 Sam. xiii, 14. 



THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 79 

exercised while that story is read, will enable us to answer 
the following questions : Where was our Lord when this 
event happened ? (It is said he was in the coasts of Tyre 
and Sidon.) Of what plague did the woman entreat our 
Lord to make her daughter whole ? (It is said she was 
grievously vexed with a devil.) How did he at first receive 
her petition ? (He answered her not a word.) How did the 
disciples beg him to -act ? (They besought him, sajdng, Send 
her away, for she crieth after us.) Suppose some one has 
read the narrative, or has heard it read in such a manner 
that, being afterward asked the above questions, he has 
been aljle to answer them all correctly, that person has 
exercised attention, and this is well ; but it is not a profiting 
by the Scriptures ; it is only an essential process preliminary 
to the xyrojiting hy them. The knowledge of the j)oints of the 
story, which is secured by attention, is precisely the sort of 
knowledge with which we aim at filling the Failure m ^un- 

day-scln)ol in- 

minds of children in our Sunday-schools. And stmctiou. 
it is to be feared that we are too apt to plume ourselves on 
the large stock of this sort of knowledge which a child of 
average intelligence will in a short time acquire. We forget 
that except as an essential preliminary to a far deeper and 
more important process, the knowledge of scriptural facts is 
absolutely worth nothing. 

Let us now consider what thought is, as distinct from 
attention. 

A lower form of thought, which might operate upon the 
difficulties of the nan*ative, might awaken a speculative in- 
terest. Tims it might occur to one's mind that at this period 



80 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 

our Lord is represented as being out of the limits of Palestine^ 
(in the coasts of Tyre and Sidon,) and that at 

Ppeculative 

thougiit. ^1^^ same time there were other scriptural consid- 

erations leading us to believe that he never was out of those 
limits, the Lord being a minister to the circumcision, and 
sent only to the " lost sheep of the house of Israel;" we might 
seek the solution of the difficulty by inquiring whether the 
words might not be interpreted as meaning only the lorders 
of Tyre and Sidon, (a district immediately adjoining this 
Gentile country.) This would be a form of speculative 
thought, which forms largely the field of inquiry among 
critical commentaries. 

But there is a higher form of thought requisite to secure 
our obtaining from the Holy Scriptures that 

Devotional ° J r 

thought. nourishment w^liich we need. It brings into 

exercise not the speculative faculty, nor curiosity in any 
form or shape, but those moral faculties which the hum- 
blest mind has in common with the philosof)her-— the heart, 
the conscience, and the will. Devotional or practical thought 
will ask, Why did our Lord, so full of tenderness and com- 
passion, who seems to have traveled into this far corner of 
Palestine for the sole purpose of giving" this woman an op- 
portunity of access to him, meet her with perfect silence, in 
the first instance, and in the second with the discouragement 
of rough, hard words ? Why ? but because he designs to 
teach me that if he does not immediately answer my prayers 
on the first application it is not that he does not hear them ; 
it is to draw me on by apparent denial to greater earnestness 
and importunity in prayer, and to impress upon my heart 



THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 81 

tl.is lesson of lessons, that even if after earnest prayer things 
seem to go wrong, and my wishes seem to be thwarted, he 
has still a heart of love toward me beneath this disguise of 
stern severity. 

" Judge not the Lord by feeble sense. 
Bat trust him for his grace ; * 

Behind a frowning providence 
lie hides a smiling face." 

I understand now the meaning of the severe cross which I 
sometimes meet when I have earnestly devoted Meaning of 

discourage- 

myself to God's service. Pro\'idence seemed to ments. 
be thwarting me and discouraging me when engaged in 
prosecuting my religious duties; but this Scripture, as the 
voice of the Master, speaks to me and says, " Pei*severe ; pray 
oftener and more earnestly; never abandon the narrow path 
of duty, however many discouragements are in it, and it shall 
be unto thee according to thy faith." And so, through the 
patience and comfort of the Scriptures, I have hope. 

Thus we see how devotional thought discovers in the 
revealed word the very marrow of the Gospel, Devotional 

'' ^ ' tliouglit finds 

and makes it to be the food and comfort of the theGosS"' 
soul. 

I. It is of importance that the Bible should be studied in 
order to be properly interpreted as a whole or a The whole Pi. 

ble to be stud- 

unit. It contains but one revelation, and like a i^^d. 
perfect body, every member has some vital relation to the 
whole frame. Christ is revealed in it from the commence- 
ment to the close. He comes first in promise, then in the 

ceremonial law, always in providential history, now in the 

6 



82 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 

strains of holy hymns, now in the glowing numbers of proph- 
„, . . , ecy, at the appointed time is made manifest in 

Clmst in the *" ^^ 

whole Bible. ^i^g gggi^^ ^j^^ .g ^j^gj^ j^^j^ ^^^^ ^^ ^^^ ^j^gg 

of the canon as the expected trinmphant King coming in the 
clouds of heaven.'^ The custom of spending so long a period 

"As an illastratiou of the manner in which the whole revelation may be 
made to pom* its light upon one truth, we append the response of two teachers 
at a late normal convention to the question as to the manner of showing the 
connection between the Passover and Christ's great sacrifice for sin : '' C. I think I 
should call the attention of the class first to Genesis iv, 3-5, ' And Cain brought of 
the fruit of the ground an offering unto the Lorxl. And Abel, he also brought of 
the fli-stlings of his flock and of the fat thereof And the Lord had respect unto 
Abel and to his offering : but unto Cain and to his offering he had not respect.' 
And I should tell my class that here was proof that a Lamb of God was chosen 
from the foundation of tho Avorld, since here a lamb is revealed as the only 
acceptable offL-ring for sin ; and that this lamb was a type of Christ I should 
then ask them to turn to Genesis xxii, T, where we find in Abraham's offering 
<rf his son Isaac the wonderful connection between the lamb and a human body, 
foreshadowing again, with almost the distinctness of the very substance itself, 
the offering of Jesus. And when Abraham answers to Isaac's question, ' My 
son, God will provide himself a lamb,' I should ask, ' O, 1 wonder if Abraham 
knew the fall meaning of his own reply, and whether he believed that God 
would provide for himself a lamb, or provide himself for a lamb?' Then 
again in Exodus xxiii, 18, God calls this paschal lamb ' my sacrifice ' — the sacri- 
fice chosen of God, and God chosen for a sacrifice. Then I should refer them to 
John i, 29. in connection with Genesis xxii, 7, ' My son, God will provide him- 
self a lamb,' and 'Behold the Lamb of God !' In his first epistle, i, 19. Peter 
says, 'A Lamb without blemisJi and without spot;' John says, ' the Lamb of 
God ;' and in Isaiah liii, 7 the evangelical prophet says of Jesus, * He was brought 
as a lamb to the slaughter.' In Exodus xii, 45 we read of the lamb that was 
prepared for the Passover, ' Neither shall ye break a bone thereof;' and in John 
xix, 33, 36, 'And when they came to Jesus they brake not his legs, that the 
Scripture might be fiilfilled, A bone of him shall not be broken.' And in Eev. 
V, 12 we read of ten thousand times ten thousand of the redeemed singing, 
* Worthy is the Lamb that was slain ;' and once more, in Revelation xv, 3, 
that ' they sing the song of Moses the servant of God and the song of the Lamb.' " 

" Supt. We shall only have time now to ask Brother P. what practical appli- 
eation he would make of this lesson to his scholars." 

•• J\ I think 1 should tell my class that the slaying of the lamb and the 



THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 83 

in Sunday-schools upon the study of local portions of Scrip- 
tuie to the neglect of others, and of the study of the Bible aa 
a whole, destroys in the minds of the young the vital idea oi 
the harmony of its parts, and depreciates the value of those 
portions of the holy record not ordinarily submitted to the 
study of a class. Why should years be spent upon the story 
of Christ in the Gospels when he is to be found in every 
portion of Holy Scripture ? 

In the same connection it should be remembered that there 
is a striking progress in revelation from its dawn to the last 
vision in the Apocalypse. It is a progress in nearly every 
respect in the development of God's spiritual kingdom upon 
the earth, as to the comprehension of it by those 
to whom it is revealed, and as to its require- progressive. 
ments in order to secure the divine mercy. This thought 

sprinkling of the blood in the way of God's appointment was the means God 
had provided to bring the Israelites out of their cruel bondage. 1 would en- 
deavor to show my scholars that they have sinned, and in common with the 
whole race, are under the bondage of sin. a bondage more cruel and relentlesa 
than that of the Israelites, and that God has provided a way of deliverance from 
this bondage ; that Christ is that way ; that his shed blood is the only means 
that God will use ; and that this blood must be applied to the heart if the de- 
stroying angel, the avenging justice of God, shall pass over that heart. 1 
should try to show that It matters not what the previous condition or character 
of the inmates of the house had been if only the blood was found sprinkled on 
the doorposts, and so it matters not how greatly we have sinned against God if 
Jesiis's blood is sprinkled on the door of our hearts we are safe. Now how shall 
we apply this blood of Christ, and appropriate it to our own souls ? Well, I 
should say that obedience to God's command on the part of the Israelites was 
an evidence of their faith ; so, if we obej^ God's command to believe on the 
sacrifice he has appointed for sin. we exercise faith in the power and efficacy of 
his blood to save us. and faith therefore appropriates the sacrifice and saves us. 
And I might say at the close that each house had to have for itself the sign of 
bloo<l upon it in order to salvation, so each soul must be sprinkled for itself 
with the blood of Christ or it will be eternally lost." 



84 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 

will aid the Bible student in comprehending many of the acta 
in human lives, as recorded in God's word, which did not, at 
the time they were committed, through the darkness of the 
dispensation, destroy the sensibility of conscience, or remove 
from them the favor of God. Dr. Chalmers, referring to the in- 
Dr. Chalmers cidents of deceit, inordinate indulgence, and even 

on a progress- ° 

Vfrnomm?.^ social crime in men that seemed really to enjoy 
communion with God, and some of them to be able to write 
spiritual hymns and prayers that penitent and pious men in 
all ages can adopt as the expression of their own emotions, 
remarks, that these examples, set forth in Scripture without 
reprobation, " are fitted to stagger those who reflect not suf- 
ficiently on the incapacity of our narrow faculties with their 
limited range to pronounce on all the objects and history of 
the divine administration. Though morality in the abstract 
is unchangeable, it looks as if in the concrete there was a 
progressive morality from one era to another, an accommoda- 
tion to the ruder and earlier periods of humanity, distinctly 
intimated by our Saviour when he tells us of polygamy being 
allowed before the times of the Gospels, because of the hard- 
ness of their hearts. It is worthy of remark that there is no 
example, as far as I can recollect, of any deception or imper- 
fect morality of any sort being recorded of Christian disciples 
in the New Testament without a prompt and decided con- 
demnation, as in the case of Paul rebuking Peter for his am- 
bidextrous policy between Jews and Gentiles." ^* 
Bernard on A late Writer, Bernard, in his Bampton uec- 

progrress in 

lamS^ ^^^ tures, has shown most convincingly the gradual 
1* Scripture Readings, vol. i, p. 2". 



THE WOKD OF GOD OPENED. 85 

development of doctrines in tlie New Testament, from 
the revelation of the kingdom of lieaven, coming without 
observation into human hearts, to the universal and triumph- 
ant kingdom over angels and men, as set forth in the book 
of Revelation ; from the moral lessons of tlie sermon on the 
mount to the full development of the life of faith in the 
epistles of St. Paul ; and from the penitent prodigal retuniing 
to the father's house to the moral Jewdsh counselor, pointed 
to the crucified Messiah as the means of securing the 
new birth through the agency of the Holy Ghost.'^ This 
view of the Bible makes all inspired Scripture "profitable 
for doctrine." 

Olshausen remarks that " throughout Scripture there runs 
the doctrine of a deep, essential connection between the Old 
and New Testaments. As the Old Testament is oishausen on 

unity and 

always pointing onward to the New, so the latter scrfpture. '° 
is always pointing backward to the Old as its necessary 
precedent. Consequently, both alike bear the character of a 
divine revelation; only this revelation manifests itself in a 
gradual development. In the Old Testament it appears in 
its conmiencement as the seed of the subsequent plant ; in 
the New Testament the living plant itself is exhibited. On 
acco^jnt of this relation there cannot be any thing in the Old 
Testameui specifically dificrent from what is to be found in 
the New Testament, only the fojin of presenting the same 
thing is at one time more or less plain and direct than at 
anotlier." ^° 

*' Progress of Doctrine in the New Testament, by Thomas D. Bernard, M.iL 
x« Commentaries, vol. i, p. 131. 



86 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 

n. In thiy connection it may be remarked that it is impor- 
fhe scope of tant to miderstand the scope of each book of the 

each book to 

Btood. ^'^^^'"" Bible, the especial revelation it proposes to make, 
the main object for which it was written, or the cii'cum- 
stances that called it forth. The best commentary upon some 
of the epistles is a knowledge of the occasion of their being 
written, and a careful reading of them through, instead of 
piecemeal by chapters, as they have been arbitrarily broken 
up for the benefit of reference. 

Mr. Locke thus recommends the perusal of a book at a 
sitting. Referring to his own experience, he says : "I con- 
Locke's habit eluded that it was necessary, for the understand- 

of reading a 

book at a sit- ^^g ^f ^j^y ^^Q ^f ^l^gj^^^ ^g^^ -panVs epistles,) often 
to read it all through at one sitting, and to observe, as well 
as I could, the design of his writing it. If the first reading 
gave me some light, the second gave me more ; and so I 
persisted on, reading constantly the whole epistle over at 
once, till I came to have a good general view of the apostle's 
main purpose in writing." 

Sometimes the sacred writer states with more or less 

iim definiteness his purpose, and his argument is to 

cred^ writer be read in view of this plan. An instance is 

stated by 

hiniseif. found in Paul's Epistle to the Romans. In the 

first three chapters he thoroughly reviews the moral condi- 
tion of Jews and Gentiles in all ages, and proves that the 
whole world is guilty before God. In the twentieth verse of 
the third chapter he states his main purpose is to show that 
" by the deeds of the law shall no flesh be justified in his 
aight; for by the law is the knowledge of sin." Having 



THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 87 

gained this, he proposes to answer the momentous question • 
' How sTiall a man l^e just with God?" After a clear an<l 
powerful discussion of the subject through the seven verses 
that follow, in the twenty-eighth he announces the e\'ident 
result of Ills reasoning : " Therefore, we conclude that a man 
is justified by faith without the deeds of the law." This 
conclusion the apostle then proceeds to set forth and illus- 
trate in its various relations to human ex23erience and tc 
God's previous dealings with his people. 

The best commentators are not those that are the most 
profuse in notes upon separate words, but who give the 
general scope and meaning of the sacred writers. 

f=> ^ o The beauty 

As you ruin a flower by tearing it in pieces, so IcHprnnT'd'e- 

,.,.,, ,. . , . p stroyed by 

our multiplied lessons upon limited portions oi considei ing it 

out of its coii- 

Scripture tear the di\ine record into tatters, "*^<=^i"n«- 
destroy both its refreshing fragrance and its beauty, and 
really sacrifice its life and power." 

" The interest that has been awakened in the ministry and among the 
people in the exposition of the Scriptures from the pulpit is a wholesome sign 
of the times. The Biblo text is too often announced at the commencement of 
a sermon simpFy as a motto or a sentiment to distinguish the discourse from 
an. ordinary lecture. There is no instrument placed by the Holy Spirit in the 
hands of a godly minister so powerful to save and to edify the Church as the 
Scriptures of truth. One of the ablest and most popular ministers of New 
York has crowded his church on Sabbath afternoons now for more than a year 
with expositions of the word of God in order, commencing with Genesis, iio 
course can more efiectually fortify the youth of the Church against the specious 
attacks upon the inspiration of the Bible now filling the literature of ttie age. 
Dr. M^'Lelland somewhat tartly remarks : " Nor can we approve the practice 
adopted by many preachers, of running into their pulpits with a single sentence 
or part of one, which they make their exclusive subject, not bestowing on the 
aonnection a word of notice, unless they have been hun-ied in their prepara- 
.ioDs, and find it convenient to talk a little round it in an extempore iutro- 



88 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 

Lessons upon the Gospels chronologically arranged liavt 
^heir purpose, but they divert the mind of the learner from a 
comprehension of the specific and important, because divine, 
Each Gospel character and object of each evangelist. Mat- 

bas a charac- 
ter of its own. thew presents the kingly side of our Lord's 

character, Mark the human, Luke the sacrificial, and John 

the divine.^* 

duction. "What would -we think if we heard any other book prelected on in 
this way — a treatise on medicine, for instance, or on morals ? or, "What would 
we think of a judge expounding in this way a legal statute ? The civil law 
has laid down an express canon on the subject, as if indignant at the idea of 
Buch a practice. It says, (as translated :) ' Buse is Jte to judge concerning the 
law, not having examined the entire law.' Ministers are often heard to chide their 
people sharply for the careless and unprofitable way in which they read the 
word of God ; but they would do well to ask whether they are not themselves 
to blame in forming them to such wretched habits of perusing it. "When his 
reverence appears before the people month after month without, in a single 
instance perhaps, explaining the design, coherence, and argument of a paragraph 
containing only six verses, it is really too much to expect that honest John 
will spend his Sabbath evenings in supplying the pastor's lack of service." 

i* Bernard, in his Bampton Lectures upon the " Progress of Doctrine in the 
New Testament," thus happily presents the scope of revelation in the New 
Testament : " First, a person is manifested and facts are set forth in the sim- 
plest external aspect, under the clearest light, and with the concurrence of a 
fourfold witness. This witness also is itself progressive, and in the last Gospel 
the glory of the person has grown more bright, and the meaning of the facta 
more clear. Then in the book of Acts Christ is preached as perfected, and as 
the refuge and life of the world. The results of his appearing are summed up 
and settled, and men are called to believe .ind be saved. Those who do so find 
themselves in new relations to each other, they become one body, and grow 
into the form and life of a catholic (or universal) Church. The state which has 
thus been entered needs to be expounded, and the life which has been begun 
needs to be educated. The apostolic letters perform the work. The questions 
which universally follow the first submissions of the mind receive their an- 
swers, and so the faith which was general grows definite. The rising exigencies 
Df the new life are met, both for the man and for the Church ; and we learn 
what is the happy consciousness, and what the holy conversation, which belong 



THE WORD OF GOD OPEXED. 89 

in. In interpreting Scripture we are never to forget its 
character. It is not intended to be a revelation scripture noi 

a revelation 

of science or a model of history, or to be judged of science. 
simply as to the literature of its poetry. It proposes simply 
to reveal God's truth to all ages of men. 

Dr. Stowe, in his interesting work upon the books of the 
Bible, remarks in a characteristically strong and perhaps 
somewhat extravagant way, " The Bible does not Dr. stowe on 

unscientific 

state, and never professes to state, scientific facts ^bie!'^**^* °^ 
in scientific forms, but only phenomena or ajDpearances to 
the eye of a spectator. For example, that the earth revolves 
on its axis from west to east once in twenty-four hours, thus 
producing day and night, is a scientific fact ; this the Bible 
never states, nor even alludes to. Indeed, I do not suppose 
that the \NTiters of the Bible knew anything about it, for ' in- 
spiration is not omniscence.' That the sun rises in the east 
autl f)asses along m the heavens till he sets in the west is a 
phenomenon, an appearance to the human eye, and this, and 
this only, is what the Bible speaks of, just as in the language 

to those who are in Christ Jesus. Lastly, as members of the body of Christ, 
we find ourselves partakers in a corporate life and a history larger than our 
own. We feel that we are taken up into a scheme of things which is in conflict 
with the present, and which cannot realize itself here. Therefore, our final 
teaching is by prophecy, which shows us, not how we are personally saved and 
victorious, but how the battle goes upon the whole, and which issues in the 
ai>poarance of a holy city, in which redemption reaches its end, and the 
liedeemer finds his joy ; in which human tendencies are realized, and divine 
promises fulfilled ; in which the ideal has become the actual, and man is per- 
lected in the presence and glory of God. . . . Only the wTitten word of God, 
confidingly followed in the progressive steps of its advance, can lead the 
weakest or the wisest into the deep blessedness of the life that is in Christ, 
and into the final glory of the city of God." 



yO THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 

of common life and common sense every-where, both among 
the learned and unlearned. While the statements of the 
Bible are true to the phenomena, the appearances, they are 
right ; they have nothing to do with scientific facts, and can- 
not come into collision with them any more than the decis- 
ions of a judge in the supreme court can come in collision 
with the governor's coach, for the two subjects are not of the 
same kind, they belong to two entirely diflferent spheres of 
thought ; they do not travel at all in the same road, and 
Folly of inter- liow cau they comc in collision ? To inter- 

pretiDK the 

^s^as°a tieat- P^^^ *^^^ ^^'^* cliaj^tcr of Gcuesis as a geological 

ise upon geol- ^ . , .^ 

ogy. essay, and to attempt to remove irom it, by scien- 

tific methods, geological difficulties, seems to me like intfr- 
preting the parable of the sower as an agricultural essay, and 
attempting to avoid the difficulty that tlie fowls of the air 
devoured only the seed that fell by the way side, by learned 
inquiries as to whether birds in ancient times could fly over 
fences, and whetlier they were not obliged to keep the road, 
and solemnly imagining the sustaining of the latter supposi- 
tion to be essential to the vindication of the truthfulness of 
Christ as a religious teacher. How much better to look at 
the simple fact just as it existed, to wit, that in the Eastern 
countries, as now in Germany and France, the farms were 
seldom fenced, and the fields for the most part were guarclea 
by old men, women, and children, whose duty it was to keep 
away the birds as well as the cattle ; and this practice very 
generally obtains in those countries at the present day, sinii)!y 
because that there old men, women, and children are chea])cT 
than fencing stuff. In the interj^retation of so plain and 



THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 9* 

homely a book as the Bible a knowledge of tlie facts and 
good common sense are generally much better common sense 

an interpieter 

guides than scientific ingenuity or metaphysical of the Biuie. 
subtilty. The Bible was not written with reference to 
science or philosophy, but with reference to the feelings, im- 
pressions, and needs of the great masses of mankind, and 
they are neither scientific men nor jihilosophers." '^ 

No Chiistian student need have anxiety lest any revelation 
in the natural world will ever contradict the Bible. What- 
ever discoveries are made in chronology as to the duration of 
man's previous residence upon earth, as to the True science 

cannot harm 

origin of species, or in the hidden strata of the t^« i^i'^i^- 
earth, the Christian scholar may patiently await their full 
development. They may be thrust forward in the interest of 
unbelief; but it will ever be in the future as in the past, that 
the revelations of all the sciences as they come to be fully 
understood will entirely accord with the tenor. and spirit of 
God's word. The Bible is no nearer being an obsolete book 
than it was when the earth was supposed to be the center of 
the universe, and the whole celestial system was thought to 
have been created in exactly six days. 

rV. The fact must not be overlooked that the Holy Scrip- 
tures are unsystematic. They contain no " body of divinity,'' 
and no connected catechism, mth questions and answers. The 
attributes of God are gathered as they are dis- 

° -' The Bible un- 

closed in his providential government over his s'^^®"*^'^*^- 
people, or in various revelations through different inspired 
men, and in diff(.Tent forms. The doctrines of the Gospel 

" Origin and History of the Books of the Bible, page 29. 



92 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 

relating to sin and human salvation are presented without 
order all over the sacred pages. One view will be presented 
at one time — as the love of God and the welcome with which 
he receives the penitent — and the indispensableness of the 
Different ncw Mrth at another. At one time Paul sets 

truths taufrht 

times! ''^'^"^"' forth the vital character of faith, without which 
it is impossible to please God, and the helplessness of one 
who hopes to save himself simply by good works : while 
James, in view of a condition of things then existing in the 
Church, sets forth with great prominence good works as 
the only reliable human test of a correct faith. There can 
be no contradiction. All the views of all the sacred writers 
are true, but they need to be understood in harmony with 
each other, and must be interpreted in the light of the cir- 
cumstances under which they were written. Goulburn 
Gouiburn's ii- remarks, "The jDrecept and the doctrine (in the 

lustratiou of 

tiiis. Scriptures) are thrown out just as the occasion 

for them offers. The sacred writer does not stop to guard or 
counterbalance them ; if they need this, the counterbalancing 
precept is to be found in another inspired writing, which 
originated on a wholly different occasion. Even so in the 
field of nature we do not find a noxious herb 

Analogy in 

nature. growing side by side with its antidote ; but 

noxious herbs (only noxious in certain applications, having 
their uses and services in the general system) are found in 
one locality ; in another district, whose features are different, 
springs up the medicinal plant. Man is left to discover and 
api)ly the counteracting power." 

Overlooking this truth the great reformer himself, Martin 



THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 93 

Luther, who had fought in his own person for the doctrine 
of salvation by faith onlv, was disposed to throw „ 

'' - ' ^ Error of Mar- 

out of the canon the Epistle of James as teach- tm^ut'ier. 
ing a diflferent Gospel, and therefore not one of the divine 
circle. Luther was right in his doctrine according to Paul, 
and so was James. There was, in truth, no collision between 
them ; but the reformer was too impatient in the stress of his 
struggle with the Roman Church to give the apostle a care- 
ful examination. Into this error those fall who afBnn a finite 

and human nature only to the Son of God, and Knor of Ra- 
tionalists and 
quote the w^ords of Jesus himself to prove it; Universaiists. 

M^ho insist that repentance without faith in the atonement is 

all that is requisite to secure the favor of God, and quote the 

parable of the prodigal son ; and those also who predicate 

the final salvation of all upon the revealed doctrine of the 

Fatherhood of God. Their views are certainly to be found 

in portions of the inspired word, but they are essentially 

modified without being in the least nullified by distinct 

revelations found in other portions of the Bible, and readily 

hannonized when one is willing to receive the whole counsel 

of God. These Scriptures present but different sides of the 

same truth. 

V. Here we may remark that the interpreter should not 

consider himself responsible for what is said or interpreter . 

A not respoiisi- 

taught in the Scriptures. This revelation of God says. 
God requires no apology from him. His simple ofiice is to 
discover what the Holy Spirit teaches. It is not for him to 
Boften any threatening, to modify any doctrine, to " explain 
away " the apparent meaning of any text, but simply to 



94: THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 

declare the (ivident sense of what " is written." Says Dr. 
Doedes, professor of divinity in the University of Utrecht : 
" Let the New Testament teach what it teaches ; and if men 
do not agree with it, let them have the courage to say so. 
Dr Doedes on If men do not agree with it, it is because they 

the irrespon- 

teriliSer^ 'if ^^^^^^ ^'^^^^ ^licy know better. Well, be it so. 

lit? KIVCS tll6 — • 

exact text. But let the Ncw Testament have its own views. 
The task of the interpreter is verily not of such a nature 
that when he does his duty he need ever make himself feel 
anxious while employed upon it. But he must needs become 
anxious if he hold himself responsible for what is written 
there. This, then, however, is a cross that he lays on his 
own shoulders ; and, alas ! a som'ce of torture to the writings 
which he has to intei'pret." "^^ " Be very careful," he says in 
another place, " lest you make the Scriptures say what you 
would like to find in them. What have peoj)le not extracted 
from the New Testament ? that is. What have people not 
introduced into it?" We should not forget that it is the 
truth of God that saves, not our opinion of what that truth 
should be. 

VI. The earliest intci-preters of Scripture, in order more 
readily to reconcile difficulties, and to combat tho 

Error of early 

interpreters. yi^ws of Certain cn'orists, held to a figurative, sym- 
l)olical, double, threefold, fourfold, and manifold meaning of 
the words of the sacred record. Origen taught that the liteial 
word was valueless, and that even the Scripture histories 
were allegorical ; that the six days of creation signified the 
renovation of the soul, the six days intimating that it was a 

'0 Hermeneutics of the New Testament, page 59. 



THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 95 

progressive work. Israel in Egypt is the soul living in error, 
and the seven plagues are its jDurgations from various eril 
habits ; the frogs denoting loquacity, the fleas carnal appe- 
tites, the boils pride and arrogance, etc. As man is com- 
posed of body, mind, and soul, he taught that there was a 
threefold sense, the literal, the moral, and the spiritual, in 
which the truth of inspiration was to be considered. Origen, 
reading that Abraham married Keturah in his old age, and 
learning that Keturah meant in Hebrew " sweet odor," and 
esteeming " sweet odor " to be a scriptural figure of the 
tragrance of righteousness of character, taught that the true 
meaning of this passage was, that in his old age Aljraham 

became eminently holy. These views, with The Reforma- 
tion clianjjed 
various modifications, influenced the interpre- t^'J^. 

tation of Scrijjture, until the morning of the Reformation 
put to flight the clouds and fogs that had settled down 
upon the word of God. But one Church, that of the 
New Jerusalem, or the Swedenborgian, at the present day 
gives countenance to such a rendering of the Scriptures. 
Such a view makes the Bible not the revelation, but the 
obscuration, of the will of God. There is a tendency 
among some teachers to seek far-fetched and fanciful inter- 
pictations, especially of the Old Testament; as when the 
six steps by which Solomon ascended to his throne are 
made to represent the six steps a sinner takes to reach 
pardon and eternal life : conviction, repentance, faith, regen- 
jration, justification, and sanctification. Upon the " instru- 
ment of ten strings " with which the Psalmist would praise 
God, Chrysostom discourses upon the Ten Commandments. 



96 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 

made delightful and easy to keep by di\dne grace. On the 
text, " Wliereof every one beareth twins," he asks, " What 
twins ?" and answers, " The law and the j^rophets — the two 
commandments Avhereon hang all in the life of every l)e- 
liever I " The lyread and Jish and egg which the child asks of 
liis father in the parable are thus explained by him : the 
bread is the soul, the fish is faith, which lives amid the 
billows of temptation, and the egg is hope, a pledge of 
something, but not the chicken itself! This is always 
reprehensible and dangerous. The custom of giving lessons 
upon the blackboard in Sunday-schools tends, although not 
necessarily, to this habit of allegorizing the Scriptures.^' 

" Dr. "Wise, in the "Sunday-School Journar' for March, 1868, makes the 
following well-deserved and appropriate criticism upon a "blackboard exercise" 
prepared as a model for the "Sunday-School Times:" 

" ' IIow TO Pkepake a Blackboard Exercise for a Sunday-School 

Lesson. 

1. Learn the lesson thorougMy ; get the head, and especially the hearty full of 
It, by hard study and earnest prayer. 

2. Select the thought you wish to use. 

8. Condense that thought to the smallest and sharpext point possible. 
4. Place that point upon the board. 

6. Remember that the thought or outline on the board is but '■'■dri/ hones^^ 
until clothed with " thoughts that breathe and words that bm-n " from a wanu 
and earnest heart. 

EXERCISE : 
Open Windows Dangerous for Sleepers.* 
Acts XX, 9-12. 
The open windows. Place of safety. The opemcindotcs. Place of safety. 
Ball room. Gambling Saloons. 

Theater. In Christ only. Impenitence. In Christ only. 

Drinking Saloons. Etc., etc. 

* Those sleep in opin windmo* who do not realize the dangers to which th«y iire expo86<i. 
Call upon the school to name the tpen windows. £. H. Y. 

Plymouth, III. 



THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 97 

The principle of interpretation which now prevails 
throushout the Christian Church is sometimes Historico- 
called the historico-grammatical mode. It affirms terpretatioi?' 

" The five canons here laid down are certainly very excellent, provided the 
second i)e properly qualified, 'Select the thouglU you wish to use/ Very 
good. But then that thought should be one that is obviously in the passage, or 
logically deducible from it It should be the leading thought But E. H. Y. in 
his 'exercise' violates his own canon by putting a ' thought ^ on the board 
which is not npUcled from the lesson he proposes to illustrate, because it is not 
in it at alL Let us look at it a moment. 

" The lesson is Acts xx, 9-12, which records PauPs farewell sermon at Troaa, 
the sleep of Eutychus at the open window, the fall and death ol the sleeper, with 
his restoration to life by the apostle. 

" From this passage, which was evidently recorded for the purpose of preserv- 
ing an account of the miracle, and not to censure Eutychus for a slumber which, 
if not unavoidable, was certainly excusable under the circumstances, we have 
for a selected point 
"'Open windows danokbous for sleepers.'''" 

"Now if the lesson contained this proposition, to select it would show a singu- 
lar avoidance of a grand illustriition of divine power for the sake of bringing 
oat an unimportant physical £act But the proposition itself" is neither in the 
lesson, nor is it true in itself. 

" All that the lesson teaches about open windows and sleepers is, that it \s, dan- 
gerous for persons to sl^ep in open windows. But E. II. Y. says, its thought 
is ' open windows dangerous for sleepers,'' a statement which omits the impor- 
tant fact that the danger arises not from the open windows but from sleeping 
in them. This omission makes the statement false, for open windows are often 
healthful, instead of being dangerous, to sleepers. 

'' True, E. It. Y. in his note attempts to explain his meaning, but the need lie 
felt for the insertion of a qualifying note ought to have shown him that his 
proposition was defective. The ' thought ' on a blackboard should be so put 
as not to need qualification. If it does, one object of the blackboard, which is 
to Impress some great truth on the mind through the eye, is defeated. Scholars 
carry away the point «.s it is tcritt^n., not as it is qualified by the speaker. 

" This defect in his main point vitiates the logic of his whole ' exercise.' Who 
can see any connection between an open window and a ball room, a theater, or 
a drinking saloon? The note says the point of analogy is 'that those wuo 
sleep in open windows do not realize the dangers to which they are exposed,' 
etc. But this statement confuses the mind by changing the subject of the pnip- 

7 



98 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 

that the simple grammatical meaning of the text in its con- 
nections, modified only by what is requisite to be known 

OBitlon. In the stated point '•open windows'' constitute the subject; in the 
Bote, tJwse who ' aleep in open windows.' 

"Indeed, the note makes a new statement of tlie selected thought. It is no 
long?r 'open windows dangerous to sleepers,' but those who sleep in open 
windows ' do not realize the danger to which they are exposed,' which is cer- 
tainly nearer the truth than the other. But its introduction tends to confuse 
the mind of the scholar. 

"Again, the ' exercise ' is defective because it leaves its ' point ' unproven. It 
assumes the ball room, etc., to be ' open windows,' but as there is no obvious 
analogy between an open window and a bail rooua, the assertion must fall with- 
out weight on the scholar's mind. 

" Bftt E. H. Y. will say, perhaps, that his note was intended to define the last 
term in his proposition — xleepern. Very good. Let us apply his definition to 
his figurative opea windows — the ball room for example. How will it stand ? 
Why thus: The 'ball room' is 'dangerous for sleepers,' that is, for those 
' who do not redUze the, da?igers i& which ihey are, exponed.'' Does not this 
make the danger lie, not in the tlang itself, but in the failure of the ball room 
visitor to realize the true character of the place ? Let him realize this, and be- 
conie a conscious and willful sinner, and the ball room ceases to be an open 
window. What nonsense 1 Yet we have no doubt that this, exercise, given by 
a good chalker and talker in a school or institute, would be regarded as very 
finie. Its ingenuity would divert attention from its fallacy. 

" Finally, the whele exercise is far-fetched. It is absurd to argue that because 
Euitychus iell out of a window a child should beware of going to a ball or a the- 
ter. There are plenty of texts which could be properly applied to dangerous 
amusements ; but to go to poor, sleepy Eutychus for an argument is like going 
from New York to Philadelphia by way of Albany. The journey is possible, 
but it is needlessly long. That such an exercise should be given as a model in 
such an excellent paper as the " Times," by one who i» evidently a man of 
mental vigor, is a justification <rf our late caution to keep the blackboard out of 
unskillful hands. The blackboard is an educational .Janus. It may be friend 
or foe to real instruction ; therefore we say again, Use it sparingly, use it skill- 
fully, or let it alone. 

" We have written this criticism not to discourage the proper use of the black- 
board, but to guard against its abuse. As an example of false syntax is often a bet- 
t«.r Illustration of a grammatical rule than a correct rule, so may this criticism be 
ft bette; help to one who uses the blackboard than a really faultless exercise." 



THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 99 

about tlie language in which it was uttered, the individuality 
and custom of speaking of the author, and the manners and 
customs of the times, is the sense in which the Holy Ghost 
leveals his truth through the words of Scripture. 

The proper office of the commentary, Bible dictionary, and 
other helps is to correct the text if there is any 

■^ Office of com- 

error, to give the modern meaning of the word ™enta"es.etc. 
if the old is obsolete, to aid in reconciling the difficulties of 
Scripture, and to present such facts in relation to the times 
and customs and homes of the writers as will enable us better 
to apprehend their meaning. We wish to obtain from 
learned men the exact force of the expressions used by the 
inspired writers ; the doctrines and precepts involved in them 
we can apprehend ourselves. 



100 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 



CHAPTER V. 

PRELIMINARY STUDIES. 

£. rpHIS volume is written to meet the wants of those who 

-^ are only familiar with their native tongue — the great 

body of our Bible interpreters to the children of the land. 

stuciy of the Our own language is enriched with the choicest 

original lan- 
guages, translations from other tongues of works of crit- 
icism and with commentaries upon the Holy Scriptures. 
A)ictionarics and exegetical notes are readily obtained, and 
at comparatively small expense, by our Sunday-school teachers. 
But to those that are still young, and can, although at con- 
siderable sacrifice, secure the time for the acquisition of 
ability to read with some ease the Hebrew and Greek text, 
we would unhesitatingly say, the pleasurable and profitable 
results will be an ample compensation for all the requisite 
toil. The finest linguist of New England mastered the 
numerous tongues which he read and spake while prose- 
cuting the laborious business of a blacksmith. It is not 
Persons need nccessary to bccome critical scholars in order, by 

not necessa- 

sciloiars"'^^*'^^ ^ general knowledge of the grammar, idioms, 
and meaning of the words, to be enabled better to appreciate 
and weigh the published results of the life-long scholarship 
and devotion to the work of biblical interpretation now the 
possession of the Christian Church. It is said of 

Bradford the 

Puritan. ^-j^e Puritan Bradford that he mastered the Latin 



THE WOKD OF GOD OPENED. 101 

and Greek, and studied the Hebrew, because " he would see 
with his own eyes the ancient oracles of God in their native 
beauty." 

II. In order to appreciate the meaning, the force, and the 
beauty of the sacred writings, it is necessary to be familiar 
with the ffeoofraphy of biblical countries, and of should be fa- 
the former and present appearance of Scripture raphy^* ^^^^ 
places. Of the effect of such a knowledge to confirm our 
confidence in the Bible, and to throw light upon its inspired 
pages, even Renan, the French Rationalist, says: "My 
commission led me to reside on the frontiers of Galilee, 
and to traverse it frequently. I have traveled 

Testimony of 

through the evangelical province in every direc- ^^°^"- 

tion. I have visited Jerusalem, Hebron, and Samaria. 

Scarcely any locality important in the history of Jesus has 

escaped me. All this history, which at a distance seems 

floating in the clouds of an unreal world, thus assumed a 

body, a solidity, which astonished me. The striking accord 

of the texts and the places, the wonderful harmony of the 

evangelical ideal with the landscape which served as its 

Betting, were to me as a revelation. I had before my eyes a 

ifth Gospel, torn, but still legible, and thenceforth, through 

•he narratives of Matthew and Mark, instead of an abstract 

being, which one would say had never existed, I saw a 

wonderful human form live and move." * 

1 Life of Jesus, page 45. We find in an English Sunday-school periodical 
• homely but significant illustration of the power of a knowledge of Scripture 
localities to confirm onr faith in the sacred record: "In a Yorkshire village 
t knew one Thomas Walsh. It was a favorite opinion of Walsh's that the Bible 
vas all made up.' He could never believe it was written where it proll-sstd 



102 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 

Ko one can listen to the lecture of Dr. Hibbard (author of a 
nibb rd d ^^^^^^tle treatise upon the Psalms) upon the jour- 
Vincent. neyings of the Israelites in the wilderness, illus- 

tiated by his large charts, without receiving a fresh and most 

to be, and by the men said to have written it. Walsh owned a considerable 
part of a factory, and one year he set his heart on making a very large and fine 
piece of cloth. He took great pains with the carding, spinning, dyeing, weav- 
ing, and finishing of it. In the process of manufacture it was one day stretched 
out on the tenter-hooks to dry. It made a fine show, and he felt very proud of 
it. The next morning he arose early to work at it, when, to his amazement, it 
was gonel It had been stolen during the night. After weeks of anxiety and 
expense, a piece of cloth, answering the description, was stopped at Manchester, 
awaiting the owner and proof. Away to Manchester went Thomas as fast as 
the express train would carry him. There he found many rolls of cloth which 
had been stolen. They were very much alike. He selected one which he 
claimed as his. But how could he prove it? In doubt and perplexity he called 
on his neighbor Stetson. ' Friend Stetson, I have found a piece of cloth which 
I am sure is the one which was stolen from me. But how to prove it is the 
question. Can you tell me how?' 'You don't want it unless it is really 
yours ? ' ' Certainly not.' ' And you want proof that is simple, plain, and 
such as will satisfy yourself and everybody?' 'Precisely so.' 'Well, take 
Bible proof.' 'Bible proof I Pray, what is that?' 'Take your cloth to the 
tenter-hooks on which it was stretched, and if it is yours every hook will just 
come to the hole through which it passed before being taken down. There will 
be scores of such hooks, and if the hooks and holes just come together right, no 
other proof that the cloth is yours will be wanted.' ' True. Why didn't I 
think of this before ?' Away he hastened, and, sure enough, every hook came 
to its little hole, and the cloth was proved to be his, and the thief was convict- 
ed, all on the evidence of the tenter-hooks. Some days after this, Thomas 
again hailed his friend. ' I say, Stetson, what did you mean by calling tenter- 
hooks proof, the other day, " Bible proof? " I am sure if I had the good evidence 
for the Bible that I had for my cloth, I would never doubt it again.' ' You 
have the same, only better, for the Bible.' 'How so?' ' Put it on the tenter- 
hooks. Take the Bible and travel with it; go to the place where it was 
made. There you find the Eed Sea, the Jordan, the Lake of Galilee, Mounts 
Lebanon, Hermon, Carmel, Tabor, and Gerizim ; there you find the cities of 
Damascus, Hebron, Tyre, Sidon, and Jerusalem. Every mountain, every river, 
every sheet of water mentioned in the Bible is there, just in the place where it 



THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 108 

interesting version of the portions of the Pentateuch devoted 
to a record of these wanderings ; and the map drawmgs and 
explanations of Rev. J. H, Vincent at Sunday-school institutes 
have suggested to hundreds the invaluable service which a 
familiar knowledge of this science affords the. interpreter of 
Scripture. 

"It is a common remark of historians concerning the Chris- 
tians of the Middle Ages that their devotion was astonish- 
ingly increased by a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. Effect of vis- 
iting holy 
This might be expected. They had gone over places. 

the hallowed ground, and were able to form a distinct pic- 
ture of it. They had walked the streets of the city which 
their divine Saviour had honored with his ministrations, and 
trod the very mount on which he had been lifted up between 
heaven and earth. The \dvid idea of tlie localities passed, 
by an easy transition, to all the facts and doctrines connected 
with them, and the felt reality of Calvary diffused itself over 
the sufferings which a thousand years before had been en- 
dured there." ' 

As an instance of the new life which may be given to an 
ancient event let us extract a few sentences fi'om the diary 
of Dean Stanley, kept during his memorable tour with the 

is located. Sinai, and the desert and the Dead Sea are there ; so that the best 
guide-book through the country is the Bible. It must have been written there 
on the spot just as your cloth must have been ma vie and stretched on your ten- 
ter-hooks. That land is the mold in which the Bible was cast, and when 
brought together we see that they fit together. You might just as well doubt 
that your cloth was fitted to your hooks.' 'Well well, I confess I nevei 
thought of that. I'll think it over again. If you are right, why, then, I'm 
wrong, that's all.' — Bihie C. Magozin^. 
^ Canon and Interpretation of Scripture. Bv Peof. M'Lellakd, page 137. 



104 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 

Prince of Wales over Palestine. "We sliould be glad, had we 
space, to introduce the entire account of the visit to the old 
Abrahamic city of Hebron. After leaving the mosque, cover- 
ing, with strong evidences of probability, the cave of Machpe- 
lah, where reposes the dust of several of the patriarchs and 
their waives, they "rode over the hills south of Hebron to visit 
the probable scene of the romantic transaction, recorded in the 
Calebs ?ift to book of Joshua and the book of Judges, between 

his dangliter 

Achsah. Caleb and his daughter Achsah.^ A wide val- 

ley, unusually green, amid the barren hills of the ' south 
coimtry,' suddenly breaks down into an almost precipitous 
and still greener ra\'ine. On the south side of this ravine is 
a village called Dura^ possibly the Adorami of the book of 
Chronicles;^ on the north, at the summit of a steeper and 
more rugged ascent, is Dewer Dan^ which recalls the name of 
Deblr^ the fortress which Othniel stormed on the condition of 
winning Achsah for his bride. ' Give me,' she said to her 
father, as she rode on her ass beside him, ' a field,' (a bless- 
ing, a rich field, such as that which lies spread in the green 
basin, which she and Caleb would first encounter in their 
ride from Hebron,) 'for thou hast given me a south land,' 
(these dry rocky hills which extend as far as the eye can 
reach, till they melt into the hazy platform of the desert,) 
'give me also the hibblings of water, the upper and lower 
Scenery an- bubblings,' It is an expressive word, (translated 

swers to de- ^ ^ ' ^ 

IcApture. °^ in «ur version upper and nether springs,) which 

seems to be used for tumbling^ foiling waves^ and is thus 

especially applicable to the rare sight of a clear rivulet that, 

« Josh. XV. 1 6-19 : Judges i. 11-15. * 2 Chron. xi 9. 



THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 105 

rising in the green meadow above mentioned, falls and flows 
continuously down to the bottom of the ravine, and by its 
upper and nether streams gives verdure to the whole. The 
identification is not perhaj)s absolutely certain, but the scene 
lends itself to the incident in every particular." ^ 

The full effect of personal examination we may not be able 
to enjoy ; but in such works as Dr. Robinson's, ^v^iks that 

■w-^ ffivc us H 

Dean Stanley's, Thomson's "The Land and the vivid idea of 

lioly locali- 

Book," and Ritter's Geography of Palestine, we *"^^- 
are enabled to look upon sacred localities almost as distinctly 
as if we gazed ujDon them with our own eyes. All fulfilled 
prophecy, both of the Old and New Testaments, relating to 
ancient countries and cities, finds the most im- importance of 

this as to ful- 

pressive confinnation in the j^resent appearance fcy.'^ propii- 
of these memorable lands. There is continued reference in 
the Old Testament to a gigantic race beside whom the Jewish 
spies were as grasshoppei*s.^ They were the original inhabit- 
ants of Bashan, east of the Jordan, and probably of Canaan. 
These Scripture statements in reference to the 

■^ The giants of 

wonderful height and strength of these men ^'i^^^'^- 
might be thought exaggerated ; but the memorials of them, 
says Rev. J. L. Porter, are to be found in every section of 
Palestine in the form of graves of enormous dimensions. He 
personally examined, in his most interesting tour through 
Bashan, cities built and occupied by them forty centuries ago 
still in existence. "I have traversed," he says, "their streets, 
I have opened the doors of their houses, I have slept peace- 
fully in their long-deserted halls. We shall see, too, that 
• Sermons in the East, page 193. " Nnm. xiii, 33. 



106 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 

among the massive ruins of these wonderful cities lie sculp- 
tured images of Astarte, with the crescent moon, which gave 
her the name of Carnaim, upon her brow." ' 

In the filial conquest of Bashan, in the small province ot 

Argob, it is said in Deuteronomy that Jair, one of the chiefs 

of the tribe of Manasseh, took no less than sixty great cities, 

" fenced with high walls, gates, and bars, besides 

The cities of & 5 & ^ » 

Bashan. unwallcd towns a great many." ^ Og, the last of 

the giants, whose bedstead was about fourteen feet in length 
and six in breadth, was the ruler of Bashan at this time. 
" Such a statement as this," says Porter, " seems all but in- 
credible. It would not stand the arithmetic of Bishop 
Colenso for a moment. Often, when reading the passage, I 
used to think that some strange mystery hung over it, for 
What Porter how could a province measuring not more than 

paw in Ba- 

»^»'^- thirty miles by twenty support such a number 

of fortified cities, especially when the greater part of it was 
a wilderness of rocks ; but mysterious, incredible as this 
»eemed, on the spot, with my own eyes, I have seen that it is 
literally true. The cities are there to this day. Some of 
them retain the ancient names recorded in the Bible." ® 

In these cities and the beautiful surrounding fields the 
tribes of Reuben, Gad, and the half tribe of Manasseh, natur- 
ally enough, desired to settle. " Bashan was regarded by 
Bashan in the the prophets of Israel as an earthly paradise. 

poetry of the 

Bible. The strength and grandeur of its oaks,*" the 

beauty of its mountain scenery," the unrivaled luxuriance of 

'> Giant Cities of Bashan, page 12. s Deut. iii, 4, 5, 14. 

» Giant Cities of Bashan, page 13. 10 Ezek. xxvii, 6. ' > Psa. Ixxviii, 15. 



THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 107 

its pastures/'^ the fertility of its wide-spreading plains, and 
the excellence of its cattle," all supplied the sacred penmen 
with lofty imagery. Remnants of the oak forests still clothe 
the mountain side ; the soil of the plains and the pastures on 
the downs are rich as of yore, and though the periodic raids 
of Arab tribes have greatly thinned the flocks 

° Present ap- 

an i herds, as they have desolated the cities, yet pe^^rance. 
such as remain — the rams and lambs, and goats and bulls — 
may be appropriately described in the words of Ezekiel as 
all of them fatlings of Bashan." '^ 

In his very interesting travels in Arabia Petrgea John L. 
Stephens, Esq., visited the wonderful but now vacant city of 
Petra, whose dwellings and temples and tombs, 

' o L J Slephens in 

highly sculptured and ornamented, were scooped ^*^*'"** 
out of the sides of the mountain. Upon this proud city of 
the descendants of Esau, in the mountains of Seir, because 
they refused to permit Israel to pass through their borders, 
the Almighty denounced the severest judgments. " I have 
sworn by myself, saith the Lord, that Bozrah (the strong 
or fortified city) shall become a desolation, a prophecies 

against Idu- 

reproach, a waste, and a curse ; and all the ^ea. 
cities thereof shall be perpetual wastes. Lo, I will make 
thee small among the heathen, and despised among men. 
Thy terribleness hath deceived thee, and the pride of thine 
heart, O thou that dwellest in the clefts of the rocks, that 
boldest the height of the hill : though thou shouldest make 
thy nest as high as the eagle, I will bring thee dowTi from 

"Jer.1,19. i3P8a.xxii,12;Micahvii,U 

'♦ Ezek. xxxix, 18. Giant Cities, pages 14, 15. 



108 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 

thence, saitli the Lord." ^^ "Thorns shall come up in lier pal- 
aces, nettles and brambles in the fortresses thereof: and it 
shall be a habitation of dragons, and a court for owls." '® "I 
would that the skeptic," says Stephens, " could stand as I 
did among the ruins of this city among the rocks, and theie 
„„ , open the sacred book and read the words of the 

The lesson to 

t le s eptic. inspired penman, wi-itten when this desolate 
place was one of the greatest cities of the world. I see the 
scoffer arrested, his cheek pale, his lip quivering, and his 
heaa't quaking with fear as the ruined city cries out to him 
in a voice loud and powerful as that of one risen from the 
dead ; though he would not believe Moses and the prophets 
he believes the handwriting of God himself in the desola- 
tion and eternal ruin around him." ^' 

These illustrations will serve simply to indicate how valu- 
able a service a knowledge of the geography and present 
condition of scriptural countries will render in the interpre- 
tation of Scripture. Our Christian literature is crowded with 
Better read- valuable and interesting volumes of this descrip- 

ing thnn 

usuaifysdect^ tion. If our youug people would throw aside 
the unsubstantial and exciting tales and stories that come in 
avalanches from the press at the present time, and seek 
works of travel in their stead, they would soon acquire a 
taste and an appetite for what would nourish the intellect 
and quicken the spiritual life. 

III. It is necessary also to have some knowl- 

Custonis and 

manners. edge of the customs and manners of the people 

«s Jer. xlix, 13, 15. " Isa. xxxiv, 18. 

' "> Travels in Egypt and Arabi.i Petrsea, vol. ii, p. 58. 



IHE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 109 

of the East. It is a cmious fact that these customs to-day, 
m a large degree, are the same as those in Abraham'fi time. 
The Lord has permitted these habits to be stereotyped as a 
standing commentary upon and illustration of his word. 
Says Sii Samuel W. Baker, the celebrated English tourist, in 
his last volume " The Nile Tributaries in Abys- Testimony of 

Sir S. W, Ba- 

sinia," referring to the customs of the native J^^r. 
tribes, "this striking similarity to the descriptions of the 
Old Testament is exceedingly interesting to a traveler when 
residing among these curious and original people. With the 
Bible in one hand and these unchanged tribes before the 
eyes, there is a thrilling illustration of the sacred record ; the 
past becomes the present ; the vail of three thousand years is 
raised, and the living picture is a witness to the exactness of 
the historical description. At the same time there is a light 
thrown upon many obscure passages in the Old Testament 
by the exj)erience of the present customs and figures of 
speech of the Arabs, which are precisely those that were 
practiced at the periods described." 

The Song of Solomon, viewed in the light of our marriage 
service, which requires for its perfonnance but a 

Song of Solo- 
few moments, is incomprehensible, or can only '"°"' 

be conceived of as a sensuous portrayal of marital love ; but 

in thfe light of oriental custom, accordmg to which the nup- 

ti il rites extended over a number of days, which w^ere passed 

in delightful companionship, the longing of the Church for the 

coming of the bridegroom, the prophetic announcement of his 

apijroach, the joy in his presence, and also the panting of the 

Individual soul for the "Chiefest among ten thousand," tLe 



110 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 

grief at his delay, the holy ecstasy upon his approach, are all 
wonderfully illustrated in the protracted and elaborate cere- 
monies and triumphant choruses of an eastern marriage. 
Several of the most impressive parables of our Lord 
requii-e for their exposition, and the comprehcn- 

Parables. 

sion of their moral lessons, a knowledge of these 
rites. "What is written in the Bible must, as much as is 
We must see ^^^^^If^^l? b^ placed more particularly in the light 
ten in the of the age from which it is descended, to which 

light of the ° ' 

times. j^ alludes, and of which it speaks. We must 

pay attention to the civil, social, and religious conditions, 
ideas, and views with which that which is written stands in 
connection in any way." ^® There are but few chapters in 
the Bible for the clear understanding of which it is not 
necessary to be acquainted with the manners and customs ol 
the East, in particular of the Jews, to be secured against 
misunderstanding. 
For illustration, the passage recorded in John i, 18, 
" which is in the bosom of the Father," referring 

Illustrations 

of this. ^Q ^YiQ near and unshared relation of the Son to 

the Father, is illustrated by their habit of reclining at the 
table. John, leaning next to his Master, reclined upon his 
bosom, and heard every word that dropped from his lips ; so 
the only-begotten Son rested upon the bosom of the Father, 
and he only could reveal him and his word to the wcrl<l. 
This custom, also, causing the limbs to be extended upon the 
couch behind them, illustrates the ease with which a grateful 
penitent could bathe the Saviom-'s feet while he sat at meat, 

»« Manual of Uer meneutics. By Dr. Doedea. page 109. 



THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. Ill 

wijje them with her disheveled hair, or anoint them with 
fragrant and precious ointment.^' 

The breaking of bread, which is referred to in Matt. xxvi. 
26, and parallel passages, where it is said Jesus 
J>roke bread at the institution of the last supper, i^''^^^- 
is a very natural thing, as those reclining at the table used ivj 
knives, and therefore bread had to be broken to be distrib- 
uted. Very easily the expression came to signify the same 
as to eat, or to keep a feast.'^" " He who does not think of 
this, or does not know it, readily finds in that ' breaking of 

bread' a symbol, and that of the breaking of Error as ap- 
plied to 
Jesus's body, which, however, was not broken. Christ's body. 

(See John xix, 33, 36.) In 1 Cor. xi, 24, the word ' broken ' in 

the words of the institution of the Lord's supper docs not 

belong to the original text."*^ It is omitted by Alford, 

TisGhendorf, and others, in their editions of the Greek New 

Testament. These illustrations might readily be multiplied, 

but enough has been said to indicate the importance of the 

subject. 

rv. The Bible is full of symbols. In all ages men have 

instinctively recognized in physical objects and 

Symbols 

events the outward expression of the thoughts 
and emotions of which they are conscious themselves, or ol 
which they have perceived signs in others. " Thus the sur 
is the acknowledged emblem of power and creation, the tern 
pest is a thunderbolt of wrath, the snow a symbol of purity, 
the rainbow of promise and hope. Spring-time and morning 
are symbols of youth, sunset and winter of age and death. The 
" Luke vii, 88 ; John xll, 3. "o Acts ii, 46 ; xx. 7. »> Dr. Doedea 



112 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 

mountains naturally suggest the idea of stability, and the sea 
that of immensity.^^ The lion is a symbol of fierceness, the 
lamb of innocence, the fox of cunning, the wolf of rapacity, 
and the dove of gentleness. In the Scriptures the horn is a 
symbol of strength and triumph, wings of swiftness, and eyes 
of intelligence. Hardly a page of Scripture can be found 
without a significant symbol. The ceremonial law was a 
The ceremo- Collection of symbols. Of the divine symbols set 

nial law sym- 
bolical, forth in the costume of the priests, in the furni- 
ture of the tal)ernacle and temple, in the various sacrifices 
and festivals, the writer of the book of Hebrews gives a 
full exposition. We should not attempt to go further, a? 
some do, with a ' zeal not according to knowledge,' and seek 
to find a spiritual meaning in the most trifling details of the 
Symbols may Hebrew sanctuary : in the nails by which the 

lie carried to 

extremes. covcring M^as fastened to the earth, in the golden 
snufifers, and in the tinkling bells upon the priestly robes. 
The writer heard a very earnest and very popular young 
divine, before a great body of Bible teachers, affirm that there 
was nothing, not even the simplest arrangement of the taber- 
nacle, but had a spiritual application; which was simply 
nonsense. The author of the book of Hebrews shows that 
tlie Jewish service, taken as a whole, w^as a symbol of the 
wh)t Heb ews ^^^P^^ ^^^ ^^^^ replete vnth a spiritual meaning 
under material forms. It has been happily said 
that the best commentary upon the book of Leviticus is the 
Epistle to the Hebrews ; and, what can be said of no other 
commentary, it is inspired. As a general principle, it may be 
sa Symbols of Christendom. By J. E. Thompson, M. A. 



THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 113 

held unsafe to find any types in Old Testament characters, 
as Adam, Noah, Joseph, David, not affirmed to be such l)y 
the Scriptures themselves. 

Throughout the Bible, numbers, unless it is definitely stated 
or clearly to be inferred that they are to be taken 
literally, are used symbolically. Seven is constantly ^^^i^^^'s- 
Qs-nd in this way to signify a complete or perfect number. 
Thus we read of seven lamps, seven stars, seven 

*- ' The number 

kings, seven diadems, seven hills, seven golden ^^""• 
vials, seven angels, and seven spirits of God, The number 
twelve, as a complete number, we find multiplied into 

Twelve. 

itself in the reckoning of the ransomed of Israel, who 
are estimated at one hundred and forty-four thousand. Forty 
means many. The city of Persepolis, in eastern language, is 
called " the city of forty towers," though the number 

Forty, 
is much larger. This is probably the meaning in 

2 Kings viii, 9, where Hazael is said to have brought as a 

present to Elisha forty camels' burden of the good things of 

Damascus. Seventy is used to express a large, complete, but 

uncertain number. We are commanded to forgive till 

Seventy. 

seventy times seven, to indicate that if our l;rother 
repent of his fault there must be no narrow limit to his for- 
giveness. The rude reckoning of a year was three hundred and 
sixty days; this multiplied by three and a half (a The tiiree 

huntlred ;inii 

time, times, and half a time) gives twelve hundred "xty days. 
and sixty, the famous prophetic and symbolic number which 
has given rise to so much conjecture. The Hebrew letters 
which form the word corresponding to "mys- „. 

^ ° •'Six hundred 

tery'' represent, when employed as numerals, the ^.nd sixty -six 

8 



114 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 

mystic number six hundred and sixty-six.^^ How astonish- 
ing that any one should build up a mathematical plan of the 
world's duration, upon such confessedly symbolical figures, 
of the exact value of which inspiration has given no measure. 
Natural phenomena are constantly used as symbols in the 
Old and New Testaments. The sun is an em- 

Natural sym- 

****'*■ blem of gloi*y and strength, the morning star of 

beauteous promise, the rainbow of God's covenant of mercy. 
In the Book of Revelation there are many symbols portending 
calamity, such as lightning and thunder, winds, fire and 
brimstone, the blackened sun, the blood-red moon, stars 
burning or falling from heaven, earthquake, fire, and flame. 
Animals and their bodily members play a large part in the 
prophetical and poetical Scriptures. The four 

Animal S3rm- 

boia. living ones (" beasts" in our version) of Ezekiel 

have given rise to volumes of controversy ; they probably 
symbolize the whole animated creation. The white horse is 
the emblem of victory, the red of war, the black of famine, 
and the pale of death. The ferocity of the leopard and the 
])ear, the headstrong push of the ram, the deadly bite of the 
scorpion, the destructiveness of locust-swarms, the deadly 
power of the serpent, fiimish the key to their symbolic 
employment in prophecy.'** 

Jerusalem, the metropolis of the Land of Promise, and the 
Jerusalem and placc where the Lord especially recorded his 

Babylon sym- 

Church.^ "^® name and manifested his presence, is often used 
to symbolize the Church of Christ in the ideal perfectness of 
her situation, economy, rule, and security On the other 

«s Symbols of Christendom. 24 jbid. 



THE WOKD OF GOD OPENED. 115' 

hand, Babylon, to the Jewish mind a name of ill omen, 
suggesting a memory of captivity, idolatry, and shame, is 
the personification of that sinful society which opposes and 
harasses the Church. The terms Sodom and Egypt, for the 
same reasons, are used for the same purpose. 

The emblems of earthly royalty are freely emj)loyed in 
Scripture to denote the authority and reign of 

^ JO Earthly roy- 

God and of created invisible powers. Many ^'^^* 
diadems upon one head denote plurality of dominion, which 
the pope of Rome still symbolizes in his triple crown or 
tiara. The iron scepter is the symbol of severity, as the 
Psalmist predicts : " He shall rule the nations with a 
rod of iron." The sword is the universal emblem of 
war; he who bears the sword is mighty to oppose and 
to subdue. " The sword going out of the mouth " is sym- 
bolical of the power attending the words of the august 
Speaker. 

" The haiTcst and the vintage were, among the Jews, the 
chief seasons of agricultural festivity. In the 

'' The vintape 

symbolism of the Apocalypse, the com harvest ^"^ harvest, 
and the subsequent garnering denote the spiritual maturity 
and the eternal safety of Christ's people ; the vintage, on the 
other hand, figures forth ripeness unto wrath ; the treading 
of the grapes in the wine-press emblematizing the seventy of 
the inevitable and divine vengeance. The sharp sickle is 
common to both, being the instrument in the one case of 
salvation, in the other of destruction. The vials 

... . -, , , The vials. 

which were emptied by the angels upon the earth 

were not what we understand by that term in English ; they 



116 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 

were the Latin paterce^ broad, flat bowls or dishes, used both 
in worship and in household affairs." ^^ The harp is an 
emblem of joy and praise; the scroll, or book, 
and book. ^^ purposes and decrees ; the seal upon it 

denotes secresy. Keys signify power to admit and exclude ; 
a gem or white stone, acquittal, friendship, or felicity. By 
eating a book, or scroll, is intended participation in the 
divine purposes; by drinking the wine of wrath and the 
cup of vengeance, the enduring of the divine displeasure. 
The bride is the pure, chosen, and beloved 

Tne bride. 

Church of Christ. The Church is also repre- 
sented under the similitude of the woman clothed with the 
^sun. The harlot is the idolatrous, antichristian body tempt- 
ing the true Church to forsake the Lord.'*® 

The great battle between truth and error is set forth in the 
^^^®^^*^^^ i^ symbols taken from the prophecy 
mageddon. ^f Ezekiel, in which the forces of Gog and 
Magog represent the combined hosts of error gathered from 
every quarter. Of its final result the Church of Christ is left 
in no anxious doubt. It often occurs in the Old Testament 
that the prophets predict the judgments which God is about 
„ ,. . to visit upon the nations by symbolical acts, as 

Symbolical ^ "^ "^ ' 

'^'^^'^' where Isaiah is directed to " loose the sackcloth 

from his loins," to " put off the shoe from his foot," and he is 
Walking said to have done so " walking naked and 

naked and 

barefoot barefoot three years a sign and a wonder." ^"^ 

Evidently this was not actually done by the prophet, for it 

would have been a shameful exposure of his person ; but the 

as J. R. Thompson. ^*Vo\^ s'' Isa. xx. 



THE WOKD OF GOD OPENED. 117 

symbolic picture is presented, illustrating the judgments ( f 
God about to be brought upon Egypt and Ethiopia. Ere 
long they would be conquered in battle, made captives, and 
be led forth " naked and barefoot, even with their buttocks 
uncovered, to the shame of Egypt." Thus by this pictured 
symbol a shameful uncovering or a disgi'aceful humiliation of 
the jiroud idolatrous powers upon whom Israel was inclined 
to lean for support in her threatened invasions from the East, 
is pointed out. If the prophet had simply exposed himself 
in this manner no one would have connected his shame with 
that of the designated countries ; or, if he had symbolical 

only, or with- 

declared this, his constant appearance for three out force. 
years would have utterly destroyed its impressiveness. It 
was simply a symbolized prophecy. 

Thus also the symbolical marriage of the prophet to the 
prophetess,^^ and the birth of a son with a sym- Maniage of 

* ^ ' *' the prophet to 

bolic name, could not have been a literal occur- ggl. i^'"oiJ^'^*" 
rence, because such a course would have been simply adultery, 
as evidently the prophetess was not of his family. The object 
of the prophetic warning was to show the Jewish people that 
a certain overthrow would be speedily visited upon the 
combined powers of Samaria and Damascus. For this pur- 
pose the prophet is led by God to the prophetess, that by the 
conjunction of a twofold prophetical character in the parent- 
age there might be a birth in the strongest sense prophetical. 
The name of the child is significant as translated : hasten^ 
spoil, quick prey. Before the predictive child should be able 
to cry "My father," God declares by Isaiah, that both Syria 
28 Isaiah viii, 1-31. 



118 THE WOKD OF GOD OPENED. 

and Damascus shall have fallen under the stroke of Assyria 
As a predictive symbol, the prophecy is impressive ; as an 
actual fact, it would have been inconsistent, criminal, and 
without power to awaken conviction.^* 

These illustrations will afford aid in the consideration of 
many symbolical prophecies which, literally understood, 
shock the moral sense, but considered simply as picturesque 
and significant signs are striking and full of force. " Hosea," 
for example, " is commanded to marry two impure women ; 
Symbols of Ezekiel to lie on his left side three hundred and 

Hosea and 

Ezekiel. ninety days, looking at an iron pan, then turn 

over to his right side, on which he must lie forty additional 
days, eating during the whole period a compost of lentiles, 
beans, barley, millet, and fitches, prepared in a manner most 
decidedly offensive. We affirm boldly that the expositors 
who consider these, and others which might be mentioned, 
as real transactions, dishonor the word of God, while they 
betray a want of taste that is astounding. Beyond all doubt, 
they were symbolical representations that passed before the 
prophet's mind in his inspired ecstasy." ^° 

It will be seen how modestly and carefully these scriptural 
symbols must be used. Many enthusiastic symbolists have 
Symbols . staked their reputation upon views of the future 

should be m- ^ ^ 

great^careT*^^ depending upon their proper rendering of these 
often mysterious symbols, and have been terribly abased by 
the result. What is distinctly revealed is for us and our 
children ; but what God has seen fit to vail we are to receive 
as indistinct disclosures of divine purposes, held out as great 

»9 Fairbairn on Prophecy, page 501. ^° Canon and Interpretation, page 2()6 



THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 119 

but distant lights for the direction and encouragement of 
tlie Church. 

V. "We will refer to but one other preliminary requisite to 
the safe interpretation of the holy records, and Must be in 

sympathy wltji 

that is, that we should endeavor to l^e in sympa- ters^'^ ^"* 
tliy in thought and feeling with the sacred writers. This is 
necessary in reference to any ancient or foreign author. 
" Language," says Fairbaim, " is but the utterance of thought 
and feeling on the part of one person to another, and the 
more we can identify ourselves %\'ith the state of mind out of 
which that thought and feeling arose the more manifestly 
shall we be qualified for appreciating tlie language in which 
they are embodied, and reproducing true and living impres- 
sions of it." ^* 

Thus Hagenbach remarks in his Encyclopedia, " An inward 
interest in the doctrine of theology is needful for Hasenhach 

upon inward 

a biblical interpreter. As we say that a philo- interest. 

sophical spirit is demanded for the study of Plato, a poetical 

taste for the reading of Homer or Pindar, a sensibility to wit 

and satire for the perusal of Lucian, a patriotic sentiment for 

the enjoyment of Sallust and Tacitus, equally certain is it 

that fitness to understand the profound truths of Scripture 

presupposes, as an indispensable requisite, a sentiment of 

piety, an inward religious experience." The excellent Nc- 

ander's motto was, '-''Pectus est quod theohgium 

' ^ ^ Motto of Ne- 

faclt :" " It is the heart that makes the theology." *°*^^'*- 

It is the want of this living sympathy and divine experience 

tliat renders certain, otherwise so intelligent, scholai-s blind 

•1 Hermeneutical Manual, page 80. 



120 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 

to the significant meaning of the Scriptures. The learned 
but rationalistic Dr. Paulus, of Heidelberg, upon 

Dr. Paulus. 

the j)assage, "Blessed art thou, for flesh and 
blood have not revealed it to thee, but mj Father that is in 
heaven," can see nothing more than a reference to the force 
of circumstances in awakening the mind toward what is 
good ; and in the w^ords, " I must work the works of Him that 
sent me while it is day ; the night cometh when no man 
can work ;" all the sense he can find is, " I must heal 
the diseased eyes before the evening twilight comes on, 
because when it is dark we can no longer see to work." ^^ 

Thus it ever has been, and always will be, as 

^hat Jesua ' "^ ' 

*"'^" Jesus said when upon earth, " Thou hast hid 

these things from the wise and prudent, and revealed them 
unto babes." 

" When the Christian reads," says Dr. Stowe, " what Jesus 
said to Martha, ' one thing is needful^'' his own Christian con- 
sciousness teaches him that true religion, the love of Christ, 
is here meant as the one thing needful, and both grammar 
and lexicography sustain his position ; but Paulus, who has 
no Christian consciousness, in the proper sense of the term, 
can see in these words nothing more than a declaration from 
the intellectual and temperate Rabbi to the anxious woman 
cumbered about much serving, and eager to prepare a 
sumptuous entertainment for her beloved teacher, that one 
dish is enough for supper^ nor can grammar and lexicon 
alone prove the interpretation to be wrong." ^^ 

Dr. Goulburn starts the inquiry why the Bible offers so 

»'Dr. Fairbairn. »3 Bibliotheca Sacra 



THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 121 

little attraction to most persons, and why they Answer to 

■^ " " query why so 

seom to gather their theological views from any illVhe BiMe^? 
other som^ce rather than the Bible, and answers it thus : 
" It is, I fear, that we are interested in theology, and not in 
religion ; in questions and controversies rather than in godly 
edifying which is in faith. Our minds are interested, and we 
read religious works to feed and stimulate them. Our hearts 
are comparatively uninterested, and so the light of the heart, 
the food of the heart, the joy of the heart, the comfort of the 
heart, are reckoned clieap and common things in our eyes." 
We need the presence and inward aid of the 

Men neerl the 

Holy Spirit in order clearly to apprehend re- ^'^'^ ^^"^*' 
vealed truth, " for what man knoweth the things of a man 
save the spirit of man whicli is in him ? even so the things of 
God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God." ^* The Scrip- 
tures cannot be deeply and perfectly understood excejjt by 
the "Tuidauce of the same mind which inspired '^%, insDirer 

*= ^ of tlie Scrip- 

thom. The letter of the Scriptures may be familiar li^Men^us.*""' 
to us from our youth ujjward, but to God's own thought and 
cc'unsel we shall l:)e strangers until the Holy Spirit, by his 
<livine communications, reveals them to our souls. Dr. Goul- 
burn happily illustrates this truth by comparing the Bible to 
a sun-dial, which is in itself perfect and com- 

This truth U- 

plete, graven mth all the hours, and *with a ^"stiated. 
gnomon or index, which casts an exact shadow ; but what 
avails a sun-dial without light ? On a cloudy day, in tJie 
twilight, or at midnight, it cannot inform us of the time ; so 
the Bible is the chart of life, and is " able to make us wise 
- 84 1 Cor. ii, 11. 



122 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 

unto salvation ;" but its one indispensable condition is, that 
the Spirit, while we are reading it, shall be shining upon the 
heart. The Psalmist seems to have regard to this double 
necessity when he I3rays, " O send out thy light 
Psalmist. ^^^ ^j^y truth^ that they may lead me and biing 

me to thy holy hill ! " 

To guard against any misapprehension of the character of 
this work of the Holy Spirit enlightening the mind in answer 
Nature of this to prayer, it is jiroper to remark that one is not 

work of the 

Spirit. to expect after he has prayed " any sudden influx 

of a wonderful light, quite distinct from the ordinary powers 
of reflection and memory. The Holy Spirit acts upon the 
mind through the ordinary mental faculties, not without 
Spirit acts them, or independently of them. When, after 

through the 

mind. careful, patient, and prayerful thought, or after 

an effort of the imagination to realize some scriptural narra- 
tive in all its details, we find that the difficulties, one after 
another, begin to clear up, like clouds rolling away from the 
bosom of a mountain, and revealing patches of verdure smit- 
ten with the sunbeam ; or when memory recalls some appo- 
site allusion elsewhere, or some illustrative experience, 
through which we ourselves have passed — the light so vouch- 
safed is undistinguishable in our consciousness from that 
which is supplied by our natural faculties; it is supplied 
through them, they being called into operation and assisted 
by grace, whose primary actings are in the abyssmal dej^ths 
of the mind, far beyond the ken of the keenest self 
intuition." ^* 

•» Devotional Study of the Scrlptureii, 



THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 123 

Whatever other source of information may be beyond the 
teacher's reach in entering upon the work of in- xiiis pace ai- 

ways piofler- 

terpreting Scripture, this highest source of spir- ed to us. 
itual illumination is ever open and ever available, for saitli 
our Lord, "If ye then, being evil, know how to give good 
gills unto your children, how much more shall your lieav- 
enly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him." '• 

>• Lake xl, 18. 



124 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 



CHAPTER VI. 

eules of interpretation. 

Rule L 
rrillE literal meaning is to be given to all words, 
unless it will cause them to express what is in- 
consistent with universal experience as to the na- 
ture of things, or with the declared opinions of 
the sacred writers in other passages, or at variance 
with the evident scope of the passage itself. 

Always recollecting tliat the Scriptures are for the most 
part written in the language of common life, unless we find 
Obvious mean- positive qualifying reasons apparent the obvious 

ing the true 

one. and common-sense significance of the language 

of the sacred writers is to be received as the true meaning. 
"We are not to apply a sense to the words that will best suit 
our opinion of what should have been said, or what we 
desire should be said ; but our only inquiry is, What did 
Bensei on they Say ? Bengel was accustomed to say, " It is 

liol(iing to 

Scripture text, better to run all lengths with Scripture truth in 
a natural and open manner than to shift and twist and 
accommodate. Every single truth is a light of itself, and 
every error, however minute, is darkness as far as it goes." ' 

1 Of the various opluions that have been forced upon the simple utterances 
of Scrlptur*^ Dr. Stowe remarks: "As an illustration of this, read such works 



THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 12o 

Mel finch thon, the St. John of the Refonnation in spirit, and 
its scholar in literature, says in his Elements 

Melanchtlion. 

of Rhetoric, " The sense of Scripture is one, 

certain, and simple, and is every where to be ascertained 

in accordance with the principles of grammar and human 

discourse." 

The reformer himself says, with characteristic earnestness : 
" We must not make God's word mean what we 

Martin 

wish ; we must not bend it^ but allow it to bend i^uti^er. 
Its; and give it the honor of being better than we could 
make it, so that we must let it stand." 

The simplest and most natural meaning that flows from 

as Owen on the Hebrews, or M'Knight on the Epistles. Able books in their 
way, and showing no small amount of intellectual acumen and industrious 
scholarship; but how many things they think of, how many arguments they 
have, how much meaning they will find in Paul, at which the apostle himself 
would be astonished with great astonishment if he knew it were attributed to 
him ! The same is true of some of the purest and strongest of our New En- 
gland writers. If Moses and Isaiah and David and John and Paul had been 
natives of New England, habituated to the New England modes of thought, 
educated in New England colleges, and settled ministers over New England 
parishes, these expositions of our excellent fathers would have been very cor- 
rect; but as matters are, they in many cases rather project themselves than 
expound the sacred writers. Dr. Burton, in his proof-texts for the Ta>^U SiJte.me, 
ha8 the most comforting conviction that the apostle Paul was full of the same 
philosophy with himself; and Dr. Emmons, in his Scriptural proofs of the 
jErerci/je Scheme, has the most unflinching assurance that the apostle Paul waa 
clearly and heartily an exerciser ; but I suspect the apostle would be greatly 
suri)rised to learn that he was either the one or the other, and as much con- 
founded if the question were put to him which he was, as if he were asked 
whether he were a Lockeian or a Coleridgeite. Those questions were not up in 
his day, nor did the apostle's reasoning run on those lines. You might as well 
start the question whether he journeyed from Miletus to Jerusalem on a rail- 
road or in a steamboat, and adduce long and learned arguments in favor of one 
of these hypotheses and against the other."— Bihliothecu Sacra, vol. s, p. 44 



126 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 

tlie words, giving the least impression of constraint oi 
The simplest uncommon use, may, other things being equal, 

meaning the 

true one. ^e relied upon as the sense in which the words 

are to be understood. The writers were from comparatively 
humble ranks in life. " Their manners and habits, their 
The writers modcs of concei)tion and forms of speech, are 

men of hum- 
ble origin. Buch as usually belong to persons similarly cir- 
cumstanced ; that is, they partake, not of the polish and re- 
finement, the art and subtlety, which too commonly mark 
the footsteps of high cultivation and luxurious living, but of 
the free, the open, the natural, as of persons accustomed 
frankly to express, not to conceal, their emotions, or to wrap 
their sentiments in disguise." ^ 

Remark 1. WTiere, however, the literal meaning asserts that 
When literal wMch 18 TcnowTi to 1)6 impossible it must be given 

nieaning as- 

posslbimy "'it ""-^ -'' ^'^ **^ evidently then a symbolical or figurative 
up. expression. As, for illustration, when the psalm- 

ist says, " The wicked are estranged from the womb ; they 
go astray as soon as they be bom, speaking lies."' The 
literal meaning is impossible here, for no one can spealc lies 
from the moment of birth ; while the truth taught, that the 
depraved heart from the first leads the unregenerate person 
astray, is readily understood. In Jeremiah's prophecy we read, 
*' They have sowti wheat, but shall reap thorns." * Wheat 
seed would never be followed by a harvest of thorns ; but the 
expectation which they cherished of a bountiful and whole- 
some return from their labors would be blasted. 

"When it is said in 1 Cor. xv, 22, 'For as in Adam all 

» Fairbairn's Hermeneutical Manual. ^ pga. iviii, 8. « Jer. xii, 13. 



THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 127 

ilie, even so in Christ shall all be made alive,' tJiese words, 
as in Adam all die, cannot be intended to aiiinn illustration 

froin 1 Cor. 

that all men existed in Adam, nor that they xv,22. 
all sinned in his person, nor that they all died when he died. 
These are known impossibilities. One person cannot be all 
mankind ; all mankind cannot be one person. Men cannot 
exist before they exist; they cannot die before they live; they 
cannot sin before they act." * Some other meaning, therefore, 
which the Scriptures themselves would naturally aiford, must 
be found for this expression. So when, in Matthew x, 34, 

Christ tells his disciples that " he came not to Christ send- 
infra "sword" 

send peace on earth, but a sword," no justifica- j|,^tfficatfoif ° 
tion fi-om the literal rendering can be found for tion. 
the violent persecution of those esteemed to be Christ's 
enemies ; but history interprets clearly its meaning. The 
Gospel has ever occasioned differences and discords in fam- 
ilies and nations by inducing some to accept its self-denying 
truth ; while others have rejected it, and have bitterly opposed 
its friends. 

" When David says that ' he is poured out like water, and 

all his bones are out of joint ; that his heart is j)avid " pour- 
ed out like 
melted in the midst of his bowels,' we perceive water." 

instantly that a literal pouring out and melting cannot be 

meant, as nothing of the kind has ever been witnessed. 

When the Redeemer, in the institution of the The bread 

and wine in 

supper, declares of the bread that it is his body, ment. ^^"^' 
and of the wine that it is his blood, we necessarily understand 
him to be speaking figuratively and symbolically. My 

»Doble. 



.128 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 

senses distinctly see, taste, smell, and feel that the sacra- 
mental elements are nothing but real bread and w-ine. If the 
Scriptures really taught the Popish doctrine of transubstan- 
tiation they would declare a falsehood, which would be 
quite sufficient by itself to destroy their authority. If my 
senses may deceive me, how shall I convince myself that I 
ever saw a book called the Bible, or read it, or ever heard of 
such a being as Jesus Christ." ^ 

Thus says the spiritual and learned Augustine, a bishop of 
Aagustine on the Church before it l^ecame corrupted, upon 

the body and 

blood. the passage in St. John's Gospel in reference to 

eating the flesh and drinking the blood of Christ : " It ap- 
pears to order a wicked and abominable action ; it is, there- 
fore, a figure teaching that we must communicate with our 
Lord's passion, and have it sweetly and properly laid up in 
our memory that his flesh w^as crucified and wounded for us." 
We may readily decide whether a passage is figurative or 
iTow to know literal by asking the question : If the words are 

a fisurative 

expression. taken just as they stand, will the idea expressed 
be true, or contrary to experience and the nature of things ? 
When Jesus calls his disciples his sheep, we cannot doubt 
that, by a significant figure, he suggests his affection for 
The disciples them and his care of them, and their confidence 

the "sheep" 

of Jesus. in and attachment to him; and, also, the quali- 

ties of temper and character that he expects to find in them. 
Thus, sin is called in Scripture a debt ; atonement, the pay- 
ment of a debt ; pardon, the forgiveness of a debt. These are 
not literal terras, but figures of speech suggesting spiritual 

* M'Lelland. 



THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 129 

truths. We may not hold these terms to a rigid construction, 
and maintain that because Christ died for man's These fiarures 

must not lie 

sin, therefore all will be finally saved; or, that strued. ^°" 
because he has obeyed the law, therefore sinners are free to 
live in sin. Men are represented in the Bible to be dead in 
sin, but they are not dead in such a sense as to be unable to 
see and feel the truth ; neither are they free from the duty of 
repentance ; nor are they guiltless if they disregard the 
divine call. More errors, probably, have arisen from pushing 
figurative expressions to an extreme than from any other 
single cause ; and against this tendency the sober, earnest 
student of the Bible needs to be specially on his guard.'' 

The difficulty in understanding a figurative passage is 
sometimes readily resolved by referring to parallel passages 
which treat of the same subject under other symbols or in 
literal terms, or to the contexf. Thus in the inimitable 
Sermon upon the Mount, the first beatitude is a benediction 
upon the 'poor^ according to the Gospel of St. Figures int<-r- 

preted by par- 

Luke, while in St. Matthew's Gospel its nieaning niiei passages. 

" The fii-st be- 
is clearly interj)reted in the additional phrase, atttude. 

"Blessed are the poor in spirit,^^ which plainly indicates the 
error of the Romanists in their enforced poverty in their or- 
ders of mendicant Monks, and the real virtue commended — 
consciousness of spiritual necessities, the opposite of sjnrit- 
ual pride. Dr. Fairbairn applies this principle to 1 Cor. 
iii, 13, which declares that every man's work shall be made 
manifest, being revealed by fire: — ''The declaration here 
made," he says, "is, that 'the day,' namely, of coming 

^ EiMc iland-Bnok : Anpus. 



130 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 

trial, • shall be revealed by fire, and the fire shall try everj 
^ ^ . , . man's work of what sort it is.' What is the na- 

Dr. Faiibairn 

1*3 '^'revealed ^"^^ ^^ *^*^ work to be tried ? (as revealed in 
lustrated by t'^® Context.) This is naturally the first qnes- 

context. . _ . . , . 

tion. Is it of a moral, or simply of an external 
and earthly kind ? The only work spoken of in the con- 
text is that which concerns the progress of Christ's Church, 
and man's relation to it — work, therefore, in a strictly 
moral sense; and so the fire that is to try it must be moral 
too. For how incongruous were it to couple a corporeal fire 
with a spiritual service, as the means of determining its real 
character!" If we have recourse to other passages which 
speak of future trial, we find, indeed, that the Lord will be 
revealed in flaming fire ; but as to what shall really fix the 
character and the award of each man's work in the Lord, we 
are left in no room to doubt that it shall be his own searching 
judgment: this it is that shall bring all clearly to light.* 

Remark 2. We may J>e assured, if t7te letter of any Scrij)- 
ture seems to violate our moral sense, or to contradict another 
Tiie meanins moral m^ecept, it cannot de intended to have its 

must not con- a -i ? 

tradkt n.orai (yi^fH^ary seiiss. Wlieu Christ says, " If any man 
hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, he 
whnt Christ caunot be my disciple," he does not intend to 

intended by 

anduiotberf'^ tcacli US that wc must break the fourth com- 
mandment. Every human instinct which God has implanted 
in the heart would revolt against such a rendering. Christ 
simply uses the strongest earthly figure to express our super- 
Imminent obligation to him. As much as we rightly love our 

8 Fairbairn's Hermeneiitical Manual, p. 163. 



THE WORD OF GOD (3FENED. 131 

parents, we sTiould love him more. Nothing but duty tc 
Christ can come between the perfect obedience of the child 
to the reasonable commands of a parent. 

A literal rendering of the command in Matt, xviii, 9, " to 
cut off the right hand and pluck out the right 

Of o Cuttin? off 

eye," would be a breach of the spirit of the sixth ^^"^ •'^"'^• 
commandment; while Christ simply teaches that whatever 
stands between a soul and its duty, as revealed by the Holy 
Spirit, is to be sun-endered, even if the self denial is as pain- 
ful as the loss of an eye or a hand. "Put a knife to thy 
throat, if thou be a man given to appetite," as written in 
Prov. xxiii, 2, is not an exhortation to suicide, but a w^aming 
against gluttony. 

"In Luke x, 4 Christ commands his disciples ' not to salute 
(during one of their missionary journeys) any by 
the way,' a precept which our Quaker brethren precepts- 
obey to the letter. But Christ could never have intended to 
inculcate rudeness ; it must therefore mean, ' Do not lose 
rime by holding unnecessary intercourse with your friends ; 
use all expedition in jomiieying to the scene of your labors.' 
Equally absurd is their well-known exposition of the pre- 
cept, 'when smitten on the one cheek, turn the other also,' 
as if our Saviour disapj.^uved of self-defense."® 

In Rom. V, 19 we read, " For as by one man's disobedience 
many were made sinners, so by the obedience of 

Many made 

one shall many be made righteous." If we in- si'^"'^''^- 
terprct this verse literally we are at once forced to trample 
upon our moral intuitions as to right and wrong. We 

» M'Lelland. 



132 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 

cannot force our moral natures to admit the justice of 
making men sinners, on account of the sin of another, with- 
out their knowledge or consent. " Such a sense is contrary' 
to the known natm-e of man as a free agent. That natui e is 
such that he cannot be made a sinner but by his own per- 
sonal and voluntary choice. Besides, the terms of justificar 
tion through the merits of Christ are such tliat no man can 
partake of its benefits save by a personal and voluntary faith 
in him. If, therefore, men are not made righteous through 
Christ except on condition of their voluntary faith, neither, 
in all fairness, are they made sinnei-s through Adam except 
on condition of their breaking the divine law through the 
free choice of their own wills. "Whatever meaning, therefore, 
may be affixed to the passage it must be one that shall con- 
sist with the nature of man and with the natm^e of sin, for it 
is a j)rimary principle that the Scriptures eveiy where speak 
in harmony with the natm'e of the objects of which they 

The Bible does not draw nice theological and metaphysi- 
cal distinctions. The apostle simply teaches that as our 
moral nature is overthrown and disorganized 

What the apos- 

tie teaches. through our dcsccut from a fallen and sinful 
man, and moral beings from their firet volitions are sinful, 
so that moral nature is restored and sanctified by the coming 
into it of the Lord Jesus. When he is admitted into the 
heart the lost balance is restored, and the acts are righteous. 
Of the same class is the Scrii)ture found in 

Christ made 

Bin for us. 2 Qqj,^ ^^ 2^^ u ^q^ he hath made him to be sin 



THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 133 

for us, who knew no sin." Here would be a positive contra- 
diction to all the known nature of things if the words were 
taken literally. Our sinless Lord could not by any pcssi- 
bility be made to be sin. He is made, however, to be a sin 
offering — an expiatory sacrifice for our sin — so that we, peni- 
tently trusting in him, may be accounted as if we were 
righteous before God. 

The passage in Prov. xvi, 4, where it is said, " The Lord 
hath made all things for himself; yea, even the wicked for the 
day of evil," has been thought by some to teach The wicked 

made for tlie 

the forbidding doctrine that the -^dcked were day of evil. 
created that they might be condemned ; but this would be 
contrary to every conviction of justice, and to manifold other 
Scriptures, such as Psa. cxlv, 9 ; Ezek. xviii, 23 ; 3 Peter iii, 9. 
The meaning, therefore, must be that all evil shall in some 
way contribute to the gloiy of God, and promote the accom- 
plishment of his will. 

There are many things that the Bible reveals which tran- 
scend human thought, but nothing contradictory to the 
moral nature which God has given us if it Nothing: con- 

tradictoiy to 

comes within the bounds of our knowledge and ^ons! ^"°^''^" 
experience. No man is required to do injustice to his en- 
lightened convictions of right and wrong by any requisition 
which the sacred record makes upon his faith or practice. 

Remark 3. When the literal interpretation is contrary/ to 
universal experience its meaning must te modified ; ..^ 

■^ ^ ./ ^ When contra- 

as when a passage ol Scripture states absolutely sal ° expe^i-ii 

en ce must be 

what is a general truth, but has often exceptions, modified. 
Thus Solomon says in Prov. xxii, 6, "Train up a child in 



134 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 

„ . . , the way he should so, and when he is old he 

Traming of a *' ° ' 

chiW- ^iii j-ot depart from it." This is not ah^ays 

true. The verse means this is the tendency of such training, 
although the apparent exceptions, after all, may be very often 
attributed to some failure in parental training even in the 
case of very devoted and estimable persons. In 

A soft answer. 

Prov. XV, 1 it is said, "A soft answer turneth 
away wrath." This is its tendency, although certainly in every 
case this is not the result. And so when Paul declares that 

the " goodness of God leadeth to repentance," he 

The goodness 

of God. states a general truth. This is its inclination ; 

but how many resist it to their own destruction ! So, also, 
when we are commanded by our Lord to " take no thought 
Takinp: no for the morrow," and by the apostle to "pray 

cliought, and 

out^ceasing.'^" witliout ccasiug," the natural modifications of 
the literal signification of the words are so evident that no 
one can fail to perceive them. In John i, 11, 13 it is said, 
His own re- " He Came unto his own, and his own received 

ceived him 

not. liini not." It might seem from this that not one 

of his own nation received him. The next sentence, however, 
suggests the scriptural modification, " But as many as re- 
ceived him," comparatively few received him. 

Remauk 4. We shall consider in another chapter the 
interpretation of the poetic books, and of prophecy. Noth- 
ing can be more evident than that the latter cannot be 
understood literally. Hundreds have attempted it. Sys- 
interpreting tcJ^^s of hcrmcneutics liavc been prepaied pur 

prophecy must 

not be literal, porting to givc the cxact significance of j^ro- 
phetic symbols. In our own country incalculable evil has 



THE WOKD OF GOD OPEXED. loO 

been brought upon the cause of Christ; especially upon 
local Churches and individuals led away by the sincere but 
mistaken opinions of teachers who have ventured upon a 
literal rendering of prophecy. 

These are the natural exceptions, arising out of the idioms 
and customs of speaking of the times, to the principle of the 
rule, but in no measure affectmg its value as a broad canon 
for our guidance in the interpretation of the sacred writings. 

Rule IL 
In settling the meaning of words we must have 
respect chiefly to the current sense or established 
usage at the time they were uttered, rather than 
to their etymology. 

The importance of this rule is ob^Tous even in the inter- 
pretation of a book written in our own language two or 
three hundred yeare since. Thus the word f)iUain^ which at 
the present time signifies an extremely depraved person, 
formerly meant the poor serf attached to the changes in 

our own lan- 

villa or farm of a proprietor. As they were ?"age. 
ignorant, and generally dishonest and dissolute, when the 
original relation ceased, the tenn was applied to such a 
character as they were accustomed to exhibit. In our En- 
glish version of the Scriptures we find the word let^ which 
now signifies to permit, used as it formerly was in the sense 
of hindering." 
The term prevent, now usually signifies to restrain, but in 

li Romans 113. 



136 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 

the Scripture it often has its appropriate meaning, as derived 
from the Latin, to come before, or to anticipate. Thus the 
psalmist sajs : " But unto thee have I cried, O Lord ; and in 
the morning shall my prayer prevent (or come before) thee." '* 
An Englishman speaks of a man as clever, meaning that he 
is capable, dexterous; while we generally use the term as 
expressing amiableness and good nature. 

In Gal. vi, 2 we are directed to " bear one another's bur- 
dens, and so fulfill the law of Christ ;" while immediately 
As to beaiing after, in the fifth verse, we are told that " every 

our own and ' 

outers' bur- ^^^^ ^^^^^ ^^^^ j^-^ ^.^ burdcu." The context 
throws some light upon the different uses of the same term, 
indicating that one is the burden of one's trials and infirmi- 
ties, which may readily be shared in by others, while the 
other is the burden of his personal responsibility, or the 
burden of his personal state and destiny, which he must bear 
himself alone. In the original terms used to express these 
two burdens the difference is at once seen. The burdens 
which we are to bear for one another are expressed by a 
Greek word signifying the weights, the things which press 
like loads upon those who come in contact with them ; but 
the burden which each one is to bear for himself is expressed 
by two words which signify his own 'baggage, the solemn 
personal accountability which God has laid upon him. Dr. 
Fairbairn gives an interesting illustration of this rule in the 
interpretation of 2 Cor. xii, 9. The apostle here says that he 
The import of would most willingly rather srlorv in infirmities, 

"the power of ° •' & J > 

apon Vne.""^ " t^^t the power of Christ may rest upon me/* 
" Psalm Ixxsviii, 13. 



THE WOIID OF GOD OPENED. 137 

which sentence but imperfectly presents the force and signifi- 
cation of the original. The verb employed, translated Tnay 
rest, belongs to the later Greek, and is found in Polybius in 
the sense of dwelling in a tent, or inhabiting. The word, 
hoAvever, can only be explained by referring to what is said 
in the Old Testament Scriptures (which was familiar to the 
apostle) of the relation of the Lord's tabernacle or tent to his 
people ; for example, as where it is written in Isa. iv, 6, 
" And there shall be a tabernacle for a shadow in the day- 
time from the heat," signifying the Lord's gracious presence 
and protection spread over them as a shelter. So, also, in 
Rev. vii, 15 the Lord is represented as '' ta])ernacling upon" 
the redeemed in glory. In like manner the apostle here 
states it as the reason why he would rejoice in infirmities, 
that thereby Christ's power might tabernacle upon him — 
might serve him, so to speak, as the abiding refuge and 
divine resort in which he could hide himself. 

Archbishop Leighton calls attention to the expressive 
word used to denote God's opposition to the proud. God 
resisteth the proud ; sets himself in battle array . . 

^ God resisting 

(Ibr this is the force of the word) against pride, '^"^ prouii- 
as if it were his grand enemy.^^ 

The Jews frequently expressed a qualifying thought by the 
use, not of an adjective, but of a second noun, a practice which 
is also seen in the Hebrew Greek of the New Testament. 
In 2 Cor. i, 5 Paul says, the "sufferings of Christ abound 
in us." This is a very common idiom of the Scriptures. It 
means, not the sufferings experienced by Christ himself, bjt 
»« Fairbairn's Ilenneijeutical Mauual. 



138 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 

those which we suffer for him. Thus, when the apostle calls 
himself a prisoner of Christ, he means that he was 

Hebraisms. 

imprisoned for his belief in Christ. In various 
chapters of Romans Paul speaks of the " righteousness of 
God," by which he plainly signifies, not the excellency of the 
divine nature, but the righteousness by which the sinner is 
justified, and which he calls God's righteousness, because he 
graciously provided the means of its attainment, and accepts it. 
All this is in accordance with the Hebrew idiom, which em- 
ploys the genitive (or possessive case) in the place of an adjec- 
tive, as where the apostle speaks of the "patience of hope" for 
patient hope, the " glory of his power " for Ms glorious power. 
Things are sometimes said to he done which are only 
Thinpts said to attempted, or where there is an endeavor or 

be done which 

tempted.^ ^' desire to do them. Reuben is said to "have 
delivered Joseph out of the hands of his brethren." He 
sought to do so, although he failed in his purpose. " Whoso 
findeth his life," says our Saviour, " shall lose it," that is, 
seeks to find or save it — is unduly anxious — at the expense of 
duty. Sometimes an act is said to be done by a person 
when he is simply the occasion of it. Thus Jeremiah declares 
One who oc- (xxxviii, 23) that God says to the unhappy king 

casionsanact 

said to do it. Zedekiali, that he shall be taken by the hand of 
the king of Babylon, and shall " cause Jerusalem to be burnt 
with fire." The conduct of Zedekiah led to this mournful 
result at the hand of the king of Babylon. He did not order 
Jeinisalem to be burned, but it w^as burned on his account. 
This explains the apparent discrepancy betw^een Matthew's 
and Luke's account of the purchase of the " field of blood." 



THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 189 

The former states tliat it was bought by the priests and 
elders with the money that Jndas returned to them ; the 
latter, in Acts i, 18, says: "Tliis man [Judas] purchased a 
field with the reward of iniquity." In this case he was the 
occasion of the purchase, and according to the current habit 
of speech, was said to have made it himself. 

That which is difficult or inconvenient or unjust was often 
said to be impossible, as when in Ruth iv, 6, the „, . 

^ ' ' ' Things said to 

kinsman of Elimelech says, " I cannot redeem his ^•^""i'o*s.bie. 
inheritance." He had property enough to do it, but it was 
inconvenient for him to assume the necessary obligations. 
When the householder in om' Lord's parable was called at 
midnight to give admission to a friend, he rejjlies : " The 
door is shut, the children are with me in bed, and I cannot 
rise and give." He means, it would be a great discomfort f«)i 
him to do so. So, when in Mark vi, 5 it is said of our Lord 
that " he could there do no mighty work because of their 
unbelief," it is meant that he could not consistently or justly, 
or from the fact that their unbelief kept them from coming 
to him so that he might save them. 

This suggestion will aid in the understanding of that large 
class of Scriptures which refer to God as causing: Kxpiains pas- 

^ o sages whic'j 

US to " err from " his "ways," "hardening" our TcSV God!" 
'' hearts," " shutting the eyes " of sinners, and making their 
" ears heavy," lest they " should see with their eyes and hear 
with their ears." What God has in wisdom and in love per- 
mitted^ or what has occurred in the operation of laws which 
he has established, he is said, in this familiar idiom, to have 
done. He "hardened Pharaoh's heart," by permitting him to 



140 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 

harden himself through neglect of those very means which 
seiTC, when properly miproved, to soften and subdue tiie 
affections. 

Sometimes the names of parents or ancestors are used in 
the Scriptures for their posterity. Thus in Gen. ix, 25, it is 
The parents' written, " Cursed be Canaan :" but the curse fell 

names used 

ants.'^^^^'^"^ not upon himself; it rested upon his sinftil pos- 
terity. This curse, it should be recollected, did not rest 
upon his righteous descendants, for both Melchisedek and 
Abimelech were Canaanites, as was the w^oman who came to 
Christ, and whose daughter was healed.^* In the same way 
Jacob and Israel are often put for the Israelites, as in 
Psa. xiv, 7. The w^ord " son " is often used in reference to a 
remote ancestor, as the priests were called the sons of Levi. 
Brother is used in the same way, as referring to 

Brother means ^ 

areative. ^^^ collateral relation. Abraham applies the 

term to Lot, who was his nephew. Jair is called the son of 
Manasseh, because his grandfather had married the daughter 
of one of the heads of Manasseh. Mary, the mother of our 
Lord, is also thought to have descended from David in this 
way, so that our Lord was David's son, not only through his 
reputed father, but by direct descent through his mother. 
Modern biblical scholars suppose Joseph and Mary tu have 
been distant relatives. In 2 Kings viii, 26 Athaliah is called 
the daughter of Omri, while in the eighteenth verse of the 
same chapter she is called the daughter of Ahab. She w^as 
\hab's daughter and Omri's granddaughter. 
These illustrations simply indicate the importance of this 

1^ Genesis xiv, 18; xx, 6; Matthew xv, 22-28. 



THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 141 

rule, and will suggest to the young interpreter the value of a 
good critical commentary to give him the exact . 

meaning of Scripture terms accoiding to the ^^ai notes. 
usus loquendi, the current sense, of the times in wliich they 

were uttered. 

Rule m. 

To tlie utmost extent that it can be secured by 
reference to parallel passages, and especially to the 
context and other portions of Scripture written by 
the same sacred penman, the Bible should be made 
its own expositor. 

By parallel passages , are meant those teaching the aame 
doctrine, or relating the same facts : passages of 

' ^ ? 1 & Parallel paa- 

the Old Testament alluded to in the New, as ^^^^^^^ 
illustrations, or as prophecies fulfilled ; portions of the 
Scriptures where the same terms are used under other cir- 
cumstances, showing the various significations given by the 
sacred wiiters to the terms they use. Our reference 

Reference 

Bibles, one of which should always be in the hands ^^^'*^" 
of a teacher, have accumulated a valuable collection of col- 
lated texts. But much will remain for the Bible scholar 
himself to do in this direction. Many of the passages in a 
reference Bible have but the most remote, if any, relation to the 
Scripture they are said to be the parallel of, and many more 
a diligent student will collate by the aid of the concordance 
for his own benefit. It is wonderful how, in skillful hands, 
the Bible can be made to pour inspired light upon its own 
flifficult passages. 



142 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 

"I will not scrapie to assert," says tlie learned Bishop 
Bishop Hois- Horsley, " that the most illiterate Chiistian, if 

ley laponcom- 

Scriptuies. ^^ he Can but read his English Bible, and will take 
the pains to read it in this manner (studying the parallel 
passages) without any other commentary than what the 
different parts mutually furnish for each other, will not only 
attain all that practical knowledge which is necessary to 
salvation, but will become learned in every thing relating to 
his religion in such a degree that he will not be liable to be 
misled, either by the refuted arguments or the false assertions 
of those who endeavor to engraft their own opinions upon 
the oracles of God. He may safely be ignorant of all philos- 
oj)hy and all histoiy which he does not find in the sacred 
books." 

It is by companng Scripture with Scripture that we 
, ^,. become sure of the true meaning of particular 

In this way ° ■•■ 

find the true , . ,, ^ ^ a^ - • <i 

meaning of passagcs, and especially are able to ascertam the 

Scripture doc- 

*"°'^- doctrines of the Bible on questions of faith and 

practice. '' A Scripture truth is really the consistent expla- 
nation of all that Scripture teaches in reference to the question 
to be examined, and a Scripture duty is the consistent ex- 
planation of all the precepts of Scripture on the duty exam- 
ined. It is in studying the Scriptures as in studying the 
works of God. We first examine each fact or phenomenon, 
and ascertain its meaning, and then classify it with other 
similar facts, and attempt to explain the whole." '^ From 
not studying their sacred books in this way the 

EiTor of the -^ * "^ 

^^^^- Jews made their great mistake in rejecting 

^5 Ansrus, 



THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 143 

Christ. "We have heard out of the law," they say, "that 
Christ abideth forever :" (this truth had been revealed in 
Isa. ix, 7, and in Daniel vii, 14 :) " and how sayest thou," they 
inquire, that " tlie Son of man must be lifted up?" The 
Messiah's everlasting kingdom had indeed been foretold, 
but it had also been prophesied that he should be "brovight 
as a lamb to the slaughter," and that he should be«" cut off, 
though not for himself." ^^ 

Great wisdom must be used in interpreting the spiritual 
references in the New Testament to the ritual st^rvices of t]ie 
Old. In such passages as distinctly exhibit the difierences 
between the New and the Old, it is the differ- ^ 

"^ Care must be 

ences which are to be chiefly insisted upon : while ^^^ '." ^i'"'«^- 

•' i ' ualiZing the 

in those passages which present Christian priv- the oid^Tesi- 
ileges and duties under the symbols of the Old 
Testament, the agreement should be specially dwelt upon. 
Thus when the apostle, in the tw^elfth of Romans, enjoins 
a living sacrifice, there is a significant harmony shown be- 
tween the two dispensations. He exhorts those who are 
partakers of the rich grace of the Gospel to follow the ex- 
ample of the children of God under the former Covenant; 
they should bring their bodies — all their powers and attain- 
ments — place them on his altar — a real sacrifice, made 
holy by the receiving Spirit; acceptable, because the or- 
dained gift, and, therefore, well-pleasing unto the Lord. 
This woidd be a reasonable service as opposed to a cor- 
poreal or outward form of offering, while the similarity of 
the service would happily illustrate the Christian duty. 

18 Isa. liii, 7, 8; Dan. ix, '26. 



14-1: THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 

" In reading Acts ii, 21," says Angus, " we find it said that 
How to prac- ' Wliosoever shall call on the name of the Lord 

tically use 

parallel pas- g|^j^|], ^^ gayed ;' and the question may be asked, 
What is meant by calling upon the name of the Lord ? 
Matthew tells us that ' not every one that saith, Lord, Lord, 
shall enter into the kingdom of heaven,' so that the passage 
is not to be understood in its literal and restricted sense. 
On referring to Rom. x, 11-14, and 1 Cor. i, 2, we find that 
this language, which is quoted from the prophet Joel, 
implied an admission of the Messiahship, of Christ, and 
reliance on the doctrines w^hich he revealed." The im- 
port of the declaration contained in 1 Sam. xiii, 14, and 
Acts xiii, 22, that David was "a man after God's own 
heart," is explained by 1 Sam. ii, 35, where it is said, " I 
will raise me up a faithful f)riest, that shall do according 
to that which is in mine heart,'''' which shows the meaning- 
to be that David, in his official conduct, would carry out 
the divine will. 

In Joel xi, 28, among the attendant blessings upon Mes- 
siah's reign, it is promised, " I will pour out my Spirit upon 
all flesh." Should one desire to know how broad is the 
application of this promise he may turn to Gen. vi, 12, and 
read that "all Jlesh had corrupted his way," which clearly 
shows that the term flesh thus used refers to all mankind; 
but Jlesh sometimes means tender and teachable, as in Ezek. 
xi, 19, " I will give you a heart of flesh," is opposed to a heart 
of stone. Its more common meaning in the New Testament 
is corrupt and sinful human nature, as m Kom. viii, 5, " for 
they that are after the flesh do mmd the things of the flesh." 



THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 145 

It sometimes signifies, as in Gal. vi, 12, iii, 3, outward cere- 
monies as compared with inward lioliness. 

In 1 Cor. vii, 1 Paul sa} s, " It is not good for a man to 
marry;"" but in the twenty-sixth verse he explains his seeming 
contradiction of the di^dne assertion that '' it is not good 
that the man should be alone," by saying, "It is good for 
the present distress " that man should not marry. Marriage 
is an excellent thing, but may be inexpedient in times of 
severe i^ersecution. 

Sometimes the sacred writers use terms with a very differ- 
ent signification. This must not be overlooked Terms some. 

. . . . times differ- 

in their comparison. Thus in the epistles of entiyused. 

Paul the term " works," when it stands by itself, is used to 

signify the opposite of faith, the performance of legal duties, 

as the ground of salvation. In James the expression always 

means the obedience and holiness whicli flow from faith. lu 

the one case works are inconsistent with [as the ground of J 

salvation, in the other they are essential to it." 

The different writers of the Gospels supplement each 

other, and the parallel statements of the same Gospel wri- 
ters supjjle- 
events, when correctly collated, add great inter- "ther. ^"^^ 

est to the recitals, and aid in their mutual interpretation.'^ 

1' Angus. 

" To show the additional light and interest which the introduction of the 
pitntuel pase-ages in the Gospel throw upon the events which they relate. 
Dean Alford refei-s to the accounts of the transfiguration. We learn from Luke 
the very significant truth " that it was as Jfgufi prayed that the fashion of Lis 
countenance was altered." So we read that he was praying at his baptism 
(Luke iii, 21) when the Holy Giiost descended on him. So, too, it is noticed 'n 
this Gospel tliat Up. continaecl all vight in prayer. In a peculiar manner 8t. 
Luke brlnjcs out this remarkable habit of our Lord In his GospeL But also .'a 

10 



146 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 

" In Matt, ^di, 13," says Dr. Doedes, " it is evident to every 
^.H® strait one wlio pays close attention to the expression, 
way. ° * ^^ ' Enter ye in,' that we must not think of the way 
as being behind the gate, as if it were written. Go ye out at 
the strait gate, etc. No ; we must think of this gate or 
entrance as being at the end of that way. The way is not 
mentioned first, because the gate, as entrance, [to heaven,] is 
the main subject. To those now who do not understand it 
thus, and, therefore, place the gate at the commencement of 
the way, Luke, in chapter xiii, 24, 25, renders good service, 
where the gate is the same as the entrance, and this can only 
be thought of as at the end of the way." ^® 

The context is to be carefully examined to discover the 
Context to be meaning of the inspired penman in particular 

carefully ex- 
amined, passages. Tims, in Rom. vi, 23, the meaning of 

the word '■'^ death" (the wages of sin) is clearly shown from 

its opposite, "the gift of God is eternal life, through Jesus 

Christ our Lord." Li James ii, 14 the faith that cannot save 

is explained to be the faith that exhausts itself in words, and 

not in deeds. It is a faith without obedience, such a faith as 



his Barrative of tlie transfignration, " we learn what it was on which the three 
glorified ones conversed on the holy mount : hi$ decease which he kJioiiM accom- 
plish ttt Jerusalem. Thus does the incident of the transfignration acquire a 
holy significance in our Lord's history, which we should not otherwise be able 
to attach to it. He is now passing into the shadow of his Passion, and the 
blessed glorified ones are permitted to come and solace his human soul with 
mention of the sufferings he was to undergo, and the glory w hich should follow. 
The transfiguration is the gilded edge of that dark cloud into which the Son 
of God was entering for our sokes." — How to Study the New Testament 
page 92. 
'* ncrmeneutics of the New Testament, page 102. 



THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 147 

devils feel, (verse 19;) but it is not sucli as Abraham ex- 
perienced, (verse 23.) 

In 1 Jolin iii, 9 it is said, " "Whosoe^T^ is bom of God dotli 
not commit sin." But on comparing this expression with 
other parts of the epistle we find that to commit sin here 
means " to walk in darkness," i, 6 ; " not to keep the com- 
mandments," ii, 4 ; " to hate his brother," ii, 9 ; " to love 
the world," ii, 15, expressions that bespeak settled habits, 
habits alien to the spirit of a Christian.^" 

The affecting and beautiful words of the Psalmist in the 
forty-second psalm might upon the first reading seem to 
portray the longing desire of the writer to enjoy the presence 
of his God in the eternal world : 

*'As the hart panteth after Lbe water-brooks 
So panieth my soul after thee, God I 

20 Angus. Dean Alford expresses the severest reprehension of the indolent 
custom of stringing together in proof of Scripture doctrine passages of the Holy 
Eecord, and thus giving to them a signification that could cot be sustained by 
an examination of their contexts. " The utmost that seems to be expected," he 
remarks, " even from the clergy themselves, is to be able tn affirm that tlie 
Scnpture says so and so. But tchat Scripture says it ? with what intept ? how 
far, in the words quoted, is the context duly had in regard ? do they or do they 
not rightly represent the sense of the original ? these things not one clergy- 
man in ten seems to take into account, still less those laymen who would be 
ashamed to quote in the same slovenly manner any of the well-known classical 
authors. And as to ordinary English readers of the Gospels, it is not too much 
to say that the way in which they use them seems to proceed on the assump- 
tion that there is but one Gospel, not four; that that one has been delivered 
down to us entire and indisputable in every point, and in one form, and that 
form the English version as published by King James's translators." — IToio to 
Study the Nexc Tefdament. The satisfactory reliance upon the English version 
is far from being so serious an evil as the quoting of passages out of their 
connections, and thus forcing them to sustain a doctrine never intended ly the 
Inspired Author. 



T48 ' THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 

My soul thirsteth for God, the living God : 
When shall I come and appear before God ? 
My tears are my meat day and night, 
While it is said continually. Where is thy God ? " 

But the fourth verse of the psahn shows that the devout 
David sighing king, deprived of the privileges of the sanctuary 

for God's 

house. by the rebellion of his son Absalom, which had 

di-iven him from Jerusalem, wrote these words to express his 

inward panting for the beloved services of God's earthly 

courts : 

" When I remember these things, I pour out my soul in me ; 
For I had gone -with the multitude, 
1 went with them to the house of God, 
With the voice of joy and praise. 
With a multitude that kept holy day." 

The one hundred and tenth psalm describes the victorious 
progress of an illustrious j)rince greatly honored by God, 
and exalted to his right hand. The first three verses leave 
one in doubt whether the poet speaks of David or another 
and far greater personage, as the sitting at God's right hand 
may be figm'ative : 

"Jehovah said unto my Lord, 

Sit thou at my right hand. 
Messianic Until I make thine enemies thy footstool, 

l-galms. Thy powerful scepter Jehovah sends out of Zion: 

Eule in the midst of thy foes." 

But the fom'th verse settles the question : 

"Jehovah hath sworn and will not repent: 
Thou art an everlasting priest 
Of the order of Melchisedek." 

David was no priest, nor could any Hebrew monarch 
assume the office without heaven-daring profanity. The 



THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 119 

gtrange and (to the Jew) astounding phenomenon of a 
"priest upon a throne" directs us at once to David's Son 
and Lord. The application of this simple test will enable 
the plainest Christian to detect tlie jjsalms called Messianic 
at a glance. They all embody in their representations such 
remarkable incidents and traits of j^ersonal character as 
make it impossible to apply them, without the grossest 
impropriety, to any but the " Anointed of the Father." ^* 

In gathering proof texts to sustain any supposed doctrine of 
Scripture great care should be taken to examine care in gath- 

erins parallel 

the context of each quotation to see if the siy;nifi- P^^ff^f^.L^^'.^i 

t . ^ . ,1 • • ,.r. T 1 correctly de- 

cation which we give the passage is justined by termined. 
the sense, thus determined, in which it was used by the in- 
spired penmen. Any writer may readily be made to contra- 
dict himself, or to make the most extravagant assertions, by 
taking sentences out of their connection and giving to them a 
meaning that they may i)ossibly 1)ear, but ut- No doctrine 

should he 

terly opposed to the intention of the author, se^parat"'' °° 
Certainly no doctrine affecting faith and practice Scripture. 
should be built up on sejjarate clauses of Scripture. 

A clergyman of the modern school of theology called 
" liberal," in preaching upon our Lord's parable of the 
prodigal son, inquired, after he had passed through and 
illustrated its touching recitals, " Where does the prodigal son 

and the 

atonement come in here ? We see nothing of it," atonement. 
he continued, "■ as Jesus brings a penitent son to the Father's 
amis. He should know what is required, and he shows 
that all that is necessary is only that which a living earthly 

2> M'Lelland. 



150 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 

father seeks, the penitent return of the child to the tatlier's 
house." 

But this same Jesus, our Saviour, in his interview with 
Nicodemus, opens his discourse with the assertion, " Except 
a man be born again — born of water and of the Spirit — he 
cannot see the kingdom of God." He then explains to the 
wondering rabbi that this divine process is to be secured by 
looking upon the Son of man, who was to be " lifted up " as 
"Moses lifted up tlie serpent in the wilderness." Here is 
where the atonement comes in ! but where does the prodigal 
son come in in this discourse ? 

These Scriptures present different aspects of the one grand 
and divine plan of redemption, each one teaching a vital 
truth, and both indispensable to lead a sinner to a reconciled 
God. The parable presents the paternal love of God, and the 
welcome with which the j)enitent sinner is met as he returns, 
confessing his sins, to a life of obedience and trust. The 
words of Jesus to the moral Jew exhibit the divine plan by 
which God can be just, through the interposition of a 
Redeemer, and still justify the sinner that believes in Jesus, 
and the indispensable office of the Holy Ghost in renewing 
the depraved heart. 

We need to collect together from the Scriptures all that 
is said upon a given doctrine before we declare its full 
intent and relation to the other elements of a divine life. 
In 1 Cor. XV, 23 we read, as already quoted, "For as in 
Adam all die, so in Christ shall all be made alive." On these 
words we 'wmetimes find built up a theory of the moral and 
legal id',^xity of our race with our first parents : the text 



THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 151 

affinns, such interpi-eters say, tliat all men die in Adam, there- 
fore all once lived and acted in him. Here is a moral and 
legal miity, they assert; his sin was om* sin, his guilt our 
guilt, his death our death. On the other hand, another class 
declares that the text teaches that salvation by Christ is as 
universal as death by Adam. Do not all men die ? they ask. 
Does not the text say death came l)y Adam ? Wliat then, 
they inquire, as if the theory were proved beyond ;^Jj^^j;'"^|j 
a cavil, does the apostle mean, but that all are chrift. 
saved in Christ ? Sm-e enough, what does he mean ? Read 
the context, and the answer cannot be mistaken. Paul is 
presenting the glorious doctrine of the resurrection of the 
body. In his argument he says, " For since by man came 
death, by man also came the resurrection of tJie deady As 
by Adam came upon all men the sentence of death, so by the 
man Christ Jesus came upon all men the gift of resurrection 
from the dead. The apostle is writing simply upon the 
subject of the resurrection, and makes no reference eitlier to 
the univei*sal salvation of sinners or to the federal relation of 
all men to Adam. He states simply the obvious fact, that 
all men have died since Adam's sin, and as a consequence of 
it ; but that the loss of life has been more than amply com- 
pensated by Christ's giving it back again in the form of a 
resurrection to the world. As man is not necessarily lost, 
even though he may die on account of Adam's sin, so he is 
not necessarily saved, although he may live forever, as a con- 
sequence of the interposition of the Lord Jesus Christ. 

It must not be forgotten that the strongest meaning that 
can be placed upon Scripture terms is not always the writer's 



152 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 

acceptation of tlieni ; but tlie context and parallel passages 
The stronpest must determine this. Such words as perfect, per 

nieiinins not 

true'one. *^^ fection, liolincss, sanctification, without sin, must 
be carefully considered in the light of their connections and of 
parallel Scrijjtures. It must be seen at once that all these 
terms, as i3redicated of finite and imperfect beings, cannot have 
an absolute signification. Because the words, as literally ren- 
dered, seem to afford strength to any position we have taken, 
we have no right to impose a sense upon them that never 
entered into the mind of the sacred writer. The context and 
parallel passages must be sought to enable us to weigh their 
meaning. The beautiful sentence in Jer. xxxi, 3, "I have 
Eternal de- loved thee with an everlasting love, therefore with 

crees not 

Jerfxxxi.s! loving kiuducss have I di'awn thee," is sometimes 
made to teach the doctiine of eternal, decrees, and the certain 
salvation of the elect; but God here simply assures the 
tribes of Israel of deliverance and protection (m account of 
the love he bore them in former times, when with an out- 
stretched arm he brought them from the land of Egypt. In 
the familiar words found in Matt, xxii, 4, " Many are called, 
but few chosen," which have been so many times 

Many called, 

few chosen. quoted as excluding arbitrarily the unelect from 
the hope of salvation, the context clearly shows that the 
Saviour only teaches us that, while all are invited to the 
Gospel feast, few comparatively are admitted, simply from 
neglecting to secure the necessary and available qualifica- 
tions. 

The Church of Rome gives an amusing illustration of the 
error we are now considering. In their book of canon law 



THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 153 

in the chapter relating to lay trustees of Church property, 
they say, " This is prohibited in the law of Church of 

*' "^ ' ^ Rome upon 

Moses, who says, ' Thou shalt not plow with an -expand asl!" 
jx and an ass together ;' that is, they shall not have laymen 
as trustees of Church property ! " 

" The phrase, ' Blot me out of thy book,' (Exod. xxxii, 32,) 
has been made a test of Christian character, so 

"Blot me out 

that they who could not say they were willing °^ ^''^ ^'"'^'' 
to be eternally damned have been regarded as destitute of 
that submission which is the evidence of a new birth. But 
plainly it had no such force as used by Moses. He meant to 
say : ' Forget me ; take no account of me in respect to any 
thing proposed concerning the future destiny of thy people ; 
pass by me ; regard me as not written in thy book ;' without 
any reference to eternal woe." ^^ 

In reference to that most sublime of all revelations made 
to man, " God manifest in the flesh," no human presentation 
of the divine mystery can approach in impressivencss, or 
even in clearness, the utterances of the sacred writers. Js"o 
argument setting: forth the perfect humanity of 

° o 1 •'The Christ of 

our Lord and his essential divinity can be so Scnpture. 
efi'ective as the collated passages of Holy Scripture. The 
Word of God becomes flesh before our eyes. We see the 
perfect human being growing in grace and favor with God 
and man ; eating, sleeping, weeping, tempted, praying ; and 
we also stand awed before Him who heals the sick, casts out 
devils, commands the waves and the winds, and raises the 
dead. Surely he can be no other than Emmanuel, God with us 

«2 Dobie. 



154 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 

These illustrations miglit be indefinitely multiplied, l>ut 
they will serve to impress the young interpreter with thn 
importance of a careful comparison of Scripture with Scrip- 
ture, and of a close examination of the context. 

Rule IV. 

Every Scripture must be interpreted in harmony 
with the analogy or rule of faith ; and where a 
passage admits of two possible renderings, that is 
to be preferred which best agrees with the general 
teachings of the writer, and is in harmony with all 
divine revelation. 

If the Bible is all inspired of the Holy Ghost its different 
parts must be in harmony with eacli other. 

Inspiration 

implies unity. There will be unity in the revelations made 
of God, of his plan of salvation, and of man's condition 
without the Gospel, and under its influence. This is what 
is meant by the analogy, or general agreement, of faith. This 
has been more simply stated, to meet the objection 

Analogy of i J 5 J 

faith. ^Y^^^ every distinct sect and every individual in- 

terpreter has his own standard of faith or belief, in this form : 
no interpretation is correct which makes a sacred writer 
contradict himself, or the well-ascertained sentiments of any 
of the rest.^^ The apostle Paul recognized this important 
rule when he exhorted the Roman brethren to prophesy or 
preach " according to the proportion [or analogy] of faith.'' ^* 
The expression is identical with " the whole tenor of Scrip- 

'• Dobie. »* Romans xil, 61 



THE WORD or GOD OPENED. 155 

ture." One Scripture passage may contain all that God lias 

])een pleased to reveal upon a given subject. It when one pas- 

sa^e may sus- 

certamly is not to be rejected because it stands tainadoctrine. 
alone, if there is nothing in its declaration, when clearly 
apprehended from its context, that opposes the general tenor 
of revelation. But if the apparent sense of a given passage 
is directly opposed to other Scriptures, or to the 

Tfonepassapre 

analogy of faith, an interpretation is to be sought pose' outers u 

, . 11. 1 must be inter- 

for it which, without constramt to the literal ren- preted in har- 
mony with 

dering, will bring it into unity with the general *^*^"^' 
teaching of the Bible. It is the legitimate office of the 
learned expositor to consider and weigh and harmonize these 
apparent discrepancies. 

In 1 Cor. iii, 15 we read, " If any man's work shall be 
burned, he shall suffer loss : but he himself shall False fonnda- 

' tion of Papal 

be saved so as by fire." " The modern doctrine purgatmT. "^ 
of purgatory, that is, that sin is purged by literal fire, is 
derived from this text. Not to insist on the meaning of 
these words as determined by their connection, we bring this 
modern doctrine of purgatory side by side with the grand 
S3'stem of doctrines concerning which there never has been 
any dispute ; and the conclusion to which we come is, that 
any such inter^Dretation of the passage must be false, because 
it goes contrary to the doctrines of the new biith, of justifi- 
cation by faith, the merits of Christ's atonement, the uniform 
doctrine of the Bible respecting the souls of the departed, 
and to many facts recorded both in the Old Testament and 
m the New." " 

«» Dwbie. 



156 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 

All those passages in the Scriptures which speak of God as 
£rHn-toGod " ^'^penting," or changing his mind, as coming 
ner of men'!'^' clown to observe what is passing upon the earth, 
etc., are to be interpreted in such a sense as to harmonize with 
the revealed truth that God is a Spirit, omniscient, unerring, 
and everywhere present. In these Scriptures he simply 
speaks after the manner of men, and does what, if men did 
these things, would be predicable of them. All passages 
that seem to represent him as material, local, limited io 
knowledge or in power, are to be interpreted agreeably to 
the general tenor of Scripture as to his character and at- 
tributes. 

No undue wrench is given to the sacred writings by such 
a course. The necessity arises out of the nature of things. It 
Why God is is entirely reasonable and natural that God should 

thus spoken 

*'f- reveal himself in this wise. How can he mani- 

fest himself to us Ijut by material figures and words that are 
necessarily limited in their application ? But while he mani- 
fests his sentiments and his acts in these finite forms he dis- 
tinctly declares his spiritual nature and his divine power 
and Godhead, so that an intelligent mind can readily inter- 
pret these human representations in accordance with the 
spiritual nature of God. 

We select fi'om Dobie's "Key to the Bible" two illustra- 
tions of the other application of the rule, that where two or 
Of two or more meanings can be drawn fi.*om the text, that 

more iiiean- 

jngs the one quc is to be choscu whicli best agrees with the 

111 hnrm<iny " 

ieachin^s"^'of general teachings of the Scriptures. In ]\Iatt. 

the Hil)]e to 

be chosen. xvi, 18 we read, " And I say unto thee, that thou 



THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 157 

ait Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church ; and 
the gates of hell shall not prevail against it." There are at 
least three distmct shades of meaning which these words 
may reasonably bear. 1. Upon such confessions as this that 
thou hast made of my Messiahship I will build my Church ; 
or, 2. Upon this truth that I am Messiah I will Rock on which 

Christ Imiuia 

build my Church ; or, 3. By means of thee, ^is church. 
Peter, a man of finn and resolute will, will I lay the founda- 
tion of the Church as a distinct community in the world. 
The first two are both consistent with all scriptural doc- 
trines, are perhaps most commonly received by interpreters, 
and many considerations may be urged in their favor ; but 
the last is in hamiony with actual historical facts recorded 
in Acts ii, 14-36, and in chapter 10 of the same book, 
where, by Peter's instrumentality, the Church, composed both 
of Jews and Gentiles, was established as a distinct body in 
the world. And such an announcement fi'om the lips of our 
Lord, in the circumstances, was both appropriate and sig- 
nificant. It was just such an announcement as he was wont 
to make frequently of what the disciples were to endure and 
accomplish ; and we, therefore, prefer this last sense of the 
passage according to the spirit of the rule. The words of 
our Lord when recalled by Peter in the times of stem conflict 
through which he passed, w^ould administer an unsi^eakable 
solace to his heart, and to the hearts of all the other disci 
pies. But there is not one syllable in this text to justif\- the 
>\'ild, foolish, and wicked pretenses of the Papal Church 
founded upon it. 

In James v, 20 it is written, "He that converteth the 



158 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 

sinner from the error of his way shall save a soul from 
death, and shall hide a multitude of sins." This text will 
Covering a bear two renderings. 1. The soul saved, and 

multitude of 

sins. the multitude of sins that are hid, may refer to 

the person who reclaims his erring brother ; or, 3. They may 
refer to the brother reclaimed. If we adopt the first, the 
teaching of the apostle would be, that he who reclaimed a 
brother from backslidmg would save thereby his own soul, 
and hide a multitude of his own sins. But does the apostle 
mean this? According to the rule we must consider the 
design of the writer and the general system of revealed 
truth. Our impression, upon consideration of the writer's 
object and line of thought — showing the benefit that would 
accrue to others through devout and fervent prayer — and of 
the w^hole tenor of his teachings in his epistle, is, that his 
language refers to the person who is reclaimed, and that he 
holds it out as a motive to action in the work of reclaiming 
him. As respects the harmony of the first view with the 
analogy of faith there is no doubt it is wholly at variance 
with it. We are saved by faith in Christ, not by acts of 
kindness done to erring brethren. Hence we conclude the 
meaning of the passage is. He who reclaims a fallen brother 
is the means of saving a backslider's soul, and of hiding his 
sins. This is consistent with the design of the writer, and 
with the general harmony of revelation. 

As a o-eneral remark in reference to what may 

Difficulties of ^ 

denceonheir ^c Called the difficulties or contradictions of 

lionesty, and ~. . - -, n , ^ ««i 

no occasion Scripture, it may be said that they anord one 

for discour- 
agement. ^j^ ^i^g |-^gg^ evidences that there was no collu- 



THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 159 

sion between the writers to secure absolute harmony ; that 
they never have been so serious as to discourage good men 
in their grateful task of studying out the means of their 
reconcilement ; that as knowledge has increased these diffi- 
culties have disappeared ; that no one, or collection of them, 
lias been considered of so serious a moment as to allow the 
foes of the Bible to rest their objection to Scripture upon 
it ; but every new school of doubters has discarded the 
ol^jections of others, and presented fresh ones of their own. 
Some of these difficulties arise out of the statistics of the Old 
Testament when quoted with apparent variations in the 
New, out of the comparison of genealogical occasion of 

these flilipful- 

tables, and out of the relation of the same event ^i^s. 
by two evangelists in different words, or the omission or 
introduction of some one feature of an occurrence by one of 
the Gospel writers. We have already alluded to the difficul- 
ties arising from the adjustment of the new developments of 
natural science with long received opinions in reference to 
the interpretation of the Bible. As the enemies of the Bible 
were never more active than at present in attempting to 

weaken the faith of Christians in their Holy Abundant an- 
swers to all 
Scriptures, so, by the good providence of God, difficulties. 

there was never a period when so many, and such in- 
telligent and learned pens, were interested in resi3onding 
to these attacks. There has not been a difficulty or 
an apparent contradiction suggested that has not been 
examined. Every obstacle has been fairly looked in the 
face, and the literature of the Church is now rich in tl»e 
clearest and most satisfactoiy defenses of the inspiration 



160 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 

and essential harmony and purity of its volume of revealed 
truth. 

The precious works of a former age, such as those of 
Ancient and Lardner and Home, have been by no means 

modern apol- n i ^ 

ogists. superseded, and can now be profitably consulted 

in reference to nearly every difficulty arising about or within 
the Scriptures. But our nlodern commentators, like 01- 
Bhausen, Tholuck, Hengstenberg, Stier, Alford, Lange, 
Ellicott, Barnes, Whedon, and Nast, meet with great spirit, 
and with most satisfactory results, the latest imputations of 
error made by false friends or pronounced foes upon the 
sacred record. It would swell our book to undesirable pro- 
portions to introduce the more prominent difficulties of 
inspiration suggested I:>y such sincere but unbalanced minds 
Where an- as the autlior of a late w^ork upon the " Human 

3wers to ob- 

fe'Vound!"*^ Element in the Inspiration of the Scriptures." 
Every difficulty, however, has been met, and may be found 
fully answered in such volumes as "Lee upon Inspiration," 
and Garbett upon " God's Word Written." 

Every young interpreter may safely assure himself that 
May be assur- somewhere, not far from his hand, in the litera- 

ed an answer 

foimd.^^'^*'''^ ture which the Master has inspired his disciples 
to place at the disposition of his Church, a convincing 
response can be found to every charge. It is proper, how- 
ever, to guard the teachers of others in this respect. Never 
venture upon the exposition of a scriptural difficulty without 
oeing satisfied that you have a clear and pertinent view of 
the objection or difficulty, and its answer. Nothing is more 
n armful than to leave upon an ingenuous young mind an 



THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 161 

unsatisfactory solution to an apparent clifRculty Never pive an 

unsatisfactory 

of Scrij^ture. It is better to leave the clifRculty answer, 
unanswered, with the presumption in the mind of the pupil 
that the trouble arises rather from want of knowledge in 
yourself than from any intrinsic contradiction in Scripture. 
Says Alford, dean of Canterbury, in reference to apparent 
discrepancies between the evangelists, " We are certain that 
each of the Gospel narratives is, in the highest sense, true ; 
but we are not certain that we can by sight ^^^^^ Aifoni 

, . , . f. T upon discrep- 

assure ourselves, m each apparent case oi dis- ancies in the 

New Testa- 

creptinf y, that it is so, I have elsewhere main- '^^^"'^• 
tained, and I maintain here, that if we could know exactly 
how any given event related in the Gospels happened, we 
should at once be able to account for the variations in the 
/iurratives, and the separate truth of each would be shown ; 
but not knowing the exact details of any event thus nar- 
rated, nor the position of the narrator with respect to it, we 
cannot undertake to reconcile apparent discrepancies between 
the evangelists. Our plain duty in making a right use of 
the Gospels is firmly and fearlessly to recognize these, and to 
leave them as fearlessly unsolved if no honest solution can be 
found. A way may be opened by and ])y in the process of 
human discovery, and the toil of human thought, or the time 
for a solution may not come till the day when all things shall 
be known." ^® 

Henry Rogers happily says, in substance, in his " Greyson 
Letters:" "My second theory of dealing with Henry Rosera 

upon discrep 

the apparent discrepancies of the Bible is a very ancles. 

'* How to Study the New Testament, jvage 11. 
11 



162 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 

simple one, and not less admissible, namely, to let them 
alone ; to postpone them till further light is thrown upon 
them ; not to anticipate the true theory of them ; to refrain 
from pronouncing them either insoluble or otherwise. The 
general evidence for the Bible is such as to justify this delay. 
We can afford to wait. A Christian may say with justice, 
' When I can solve these difficulties, I am glad ; when I can- 
not, I am willing to suspend my judgment ; they do not, they 
never can, (whatever be the solution,) shake the substantive 
credibility of the great facts and main statements of the 
scriptural documents ; adequate evidence against these must 
be an earthquake which shall subvert the very foundations 
of the faith and leave the whole fabric a wreck, not a flash 
of critical lightning, which grazes, or splinters, or even dis- 
lodges a stone or two in some remote turret or ornamental 
pinnacle. I can wait ; I can afford to wait ; no one hurries 
me; why should I be so incontinent of my opinion as to 
pronounce before I am sure that I have all the possible data ? 
Whether the discrepancies are ultimately to be disposed of 
by supposing something less than indefectible inspiration for 
every particle of canonical Scripture, or by finding that they 
yield, as so many others have already done, to more accurate 
recensions of the text, or more severe collation of the Scrip- 
ture with itself or with profane writers, or unexpected re« 
coveries of fragments of ancient history, I leave for a wliile ; 
for, either way, the thmgs which must thus be left ait but 
' dust in the balance ;' subtracted or added, they will not 
appreciably affect the result ; and so, whether zealous Stephen 
really confoimded the scpulcher which Jacob bought of the 



THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 163 

father of Shecliem with tliat which Abraham bought of 
Epliron the Hittite or not, I shall magnanimously leave to 
future inquiries, and sleep none the worse for it.' " '^ 

Rule V. 

The spiritual instruction intended to be imparted 
by the Holy Ghost should be carefully and earnest- 
ly sought in the interpretation of Scripture. 

Revelation is a book written in human language, and as a 
book is to be interpreted according to the well-defined laws 
of languaere and grammar : but it is a book, the 1^^, ^ibie a 

o o o 1 ' book given 

whole of which is indited for a special purpose, purp^ose!'^^^'* 
and of which inspiration itself affirms that it is all profitable 
" for instruction in righteousness." We are no advocates of a 
fanciful interpretation of the Bible. We do not believe in 
mystical significations, or in a manifold sense attributed to 
the sacred writings. We enjoin a strict gram- Not a fanciful 

nor niy^tical 

matical rendering of the text, as modified only meaning. 
by the current meaning of the language used by the writers 
themselves. But after the exact and literal meaning has 
been discovered, then comes the important inquiry. What 
is the spiritual lesson that God proposes to teach 

^ ^ ^ What doet 

m this history, poetry, prophecy, ceremony, para- ^^^ teach? 
Mc", miracle, and epistle? We do not l)y any means propose 
to spiritualize a seculai event, to find tj'pes in persons not 
said in Scripture to be tj^pical, but to ask, What lesson liy 
this plain history, or by the sketch of this individual, would 
»' The Greyson Letters, page 461. 



164 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 

the Holy Spirit have us learn ? Hagenbach, in speaking <^f 
the work of Ernesti in mtroclucing a new and literal school 
of biblical interpretation, remarks that his " ground principle 
was simply this : to interpret the Bible according to its literal 
verbal sense, and to let the volume suffer neither at the hands 
of any assumed authority of the Church, nor of the feelings 
and wishes of indivicUials as to what they might choose to 
believe, nor of sportive and allegorizing fancy such as the 
mystics used to indulge in, nor of any philosophical system. 
He adojjted in this the main principle of Hugo Grotius, who 
in the seventeenth century had similarly intrenched himself. 
Ernesti was a philologist. He had employed the same prin- 
ciples in the mterpretation of the writers of Greece and Rome 
which he employed later in the interpretation of the Bible ; 
and he was right in this. The reformei-s had aimed to do 
the same thing. But he overlooked too much, perhaps, this 
fact — that in order to apprehend the religious truths of the 
Scriptures there is needed, not only a knowledge of their 
verbal and historical characteristics, but a spiritual appro- 
priation of their truths, so that one can enter livingly into 
the very heart of the Bible. Who would deny that, in order 
to understand an epistle of Paul, there must be a very dif- 
ferent manner of approaching and viewing it than would be 
needed with the letters of Cicero, since the wlioie circle of 
ideas is different in the two ? Religious writings can only be 
truly apprehended by a penetrating sj^irit, which can strike 
through the whole web of grammar and logic to the funda- 
mental truth." "^^ 

'* Germao Rationalism, Clark's edition, page 76. 



THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 165 

Westcott happily remarks : " Wlien the inteipreter of Scrip- 
ture has availed himself of evei^ help which historical criti- 
cism can furnish for the elucidation of the text — when, by the 
exact investigation of every word, the most diligent attention 
to every variation of tense, and even of order, the clearest 
recollections of eveiT phrase, he has obtained a westcott up- 

•'-'■' on si)Hitujtl 

sense of the whole, perfect in its finer shades and tfon!^'''^ '^' 
local coloring, no less than in its general outline and effect — 
his work is as yet only half done. The literal sense is but 
the source from which the spiritual sense is to be derived ; 
but exactly in proportion as a clear view is gained of all that 
is special in the immediate ol)icct and position of each writer, 
it will be found that the simple record apj^ears to be instinct 
with divine life, for the external circumstances and mental 
characteristics of the writer are not mere accidents ; but inas- 
much as they influence his apprehension and expression of 
the truth, they become a part of his divine message, and the 
typical sj^ecialty which springs from this is the condition at 
once of the usefulness and of the universality of Scripture. 
The existence of an abiding si)iritual sense underlymg the 
literal text of the Old Testament is sufficiently attested by 
the quotations in the New. Unless it be recognized, many 
of the interpretations of the evangelists and apostles must 
appear forced and arbitrary ; but if we assume that it exists, 
their usage appears to furnish an adequate clew to the in- 
vestigation of its most intricate mazes." ^^ 

Home remarks in his "Introduction," that the errors into 
which some have fallen in discovering fanciful rather than 
'» Introduction to the Study of the Gospels. 



166 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 

spiritual revelations in the Scriptures is not a sufficient reason 
for rejecting a wholesome principle. It shouid not be cast 
Horne on the awav bccausc it lias been abused, "since human 

Bpiritual im- 
port of Scrip- gj.^.^j, ^^^ j^g^gj. uiyaiidate the truth of God." 

" The literal sense," he goes on to say, " it has been well 
observed, is, undoubtedly, first in point of nature, as well aa 
in order of signification ; and consequently, when investi- 
gating the meaning of any passage, this must be ascertained 
before we proceed to search out its spiritual imj)ort ; but the 
true and genuine, or spuitual, sense excels the literal in dig- 
nity, the latter being only the medium of conveying the 
former, w^hich is more evidently designed by the Holy Spirit. 
For instance, in Num. xxi, 8, 9, compared with John iii, 14, 
the brazen serpent is said to have been lifted up in order to 
signify the lifting up of Jesus Christ, the Saviour of the 
world ; and, consequently, that the type might serve to 
designate the antitype." 

We have fully illustrated this rule in the previous chapter, 
when sjDeaking of the requisition which the discovery of the 
spiritual lessons of Holy Scriptm'e makes upon the bil^lical 
student for careful study. 



THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. lt>7 



CHAPTER yir. 

INTERPRETATION OF PARABLE, POETRY, AND PROPHECY. 

Parable, 

SOME of the most interesting and instnictiv^e portions 
of tlie Gospels are embodied in the para- 

The parable. 

bles. It has been noticed that, while our Lord 
from the commencement of his pul)lic ministry was accus- 
tomed to speak in figurative language, as when he points to 
the lilies of the field, the fowls of the air, the new cloth upon 
an old garment, new wine in old lx)ttles, yet his p, jncipai iiar- 
discourses in parables were confined to the last during the 

last year of 

year of his life. The parable has ever been a t;iinst s hfe. 

favorite channel among Eastern people, and especially among 

Jewish teachers, for the conveyance of truth. But the para 

bles of Jesus are distinguished from all others in their great 

simplicity, in their wonderful truth to nature, and in the 

significant spiritual lessons which they teach. 

Our Saviour may have adopted the paralDle to show the 

harmony between the laws of nature and the Reasons for 

using para- 
doctrines of the Gospel, thus presenting an in- t>ies. 

direct evidence that they ]x)th came from the same Author. 
Thus the sower of natural and spiritual seed labors under 
nearly the same general laws of success. 

Tholuck remarks " that the Author of the spiritual king- 
dom is also the Author of the natural kingdom, and botli 



168 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 

kingdoms develop themselves after the same laws. For this 
reason, the similitudes which the Redeemer drew from the 
Thoiuek on kingdom of nature are not mere similitudes 

the unity of -, • ■> ,-, r- -,■, • ■, 

the kingdoms wliicli scrve the pui*pose of illustration, but are 

of natui-e and 

grace. internal analogies, and nature is a witness for 

the kingdom of God. Hence was it long since announced as 
a principle, that 'whatever exists in the earthly is found 
also in the heavenly kingdom.' Were it not so, those simili- 
tudes would not possess that power of conviction which they 
carry to every unsophisticated mind." ^ 

By connecting religious truth Math natural objects, our 
Aid his hear- Lord would aid his hearers in holding his dis- 

ers to remem- 
ber his words, courses in their memories. Every lily and bird 

and merchantman of goodly pearls, every marriage feast, 

every returning season of seed-sowing, w^ould afresh remind 

his disciples of the words of Him " who spake as never man 

spake." But his parables served to illustrate and impress 

upon the minds of his discij^les the truths that he presented. 

They were blinded by prejudices resulting from their educa- 

iiiustratedand tion and Jcwisli expectations in reference to the 

iinjiressed the 

*™^^ character of the Messiah's kingdom, and slow 

to believe and receive the spiritual nature of Christ's govern- 
ment. "By teaching in parables, and presenting the con- 
cerns of his kingdom under the image of familiar objects 
and earthly relations, he laid the groundwork of a most 
comprehensive and varied instruction. Many aspects of the 
kingdom were thus unfolded to them in a form they could 
easily grasp and distinctly comprehend, though for the time 

^ I'holuck on John xv. 



THE WOKD OF GOD OPEXED. 169 

all remained, like the symbols of the Old Testament woiship, 
very much as a dark and unintelligible cipher to their view. 
That cipher, however, became lighted up with meaning when 
the personal work of Christ was finished, and the Sjiirit 
des(-ended with power to make application of its blessings, 
and the minds of the disciples were enabled to grasp the 
liigher as well as lower scheme of doctrine exhibited in the 
representation. Through the earthly form they could now 
descry the spiritual." ^ 

There is one reason which Jesus himself gives for teaching, 
jn the latter part of his ministry, almost entirely in parables: 
that it was in some sense a rebuke and judgment on his hearers 
for not receiving the truth when presented in a simple and 
direct form. At the close of the parable of the sower he 
answers the question of the disciples, why he thus spoke in 
parables, by saying, ''Unto you it is given to ^^,^ p^,.^,,,^ 
know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven ; trutii bec;iu-^e 

it had beeu 

but to them it is not given : for whosoever hath, ntjgiected. 
to him shall be given, and he shall have more abundance ; but 
whosoever hath not, from him shall be taken away even that 
he hath. Therefore speak I to them in parables: because 
they seeing, see not ; hearing, they hear not ; neither under- 
stand." " The import of the statement is," says Fairbairn, 
" that the discij^les, having to a certain extent used the pri\d- 
Icgv. they possessed, having improved the talents committed 
t(> them, were to be intrusted Avith more; while the body 
of the people, having failed to make a similar use of theif 
oi)portunities — remaining destitute of divine knowledge, not- 

" Fairbairn's Hormeneutka. 



170 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 

withstanding all that had been taught them — were to have 
their means of knowing abridged, were to be placed under a 
more indii'ect and vailed method of instruction. This mode 
This is anaio- of dealing was in perfect accordance with the 

gous to all 

Chi ist's work, wliolc uatm'e and tendency of the work of Christ 
in its relation to the hearts of men, which always carried 
along with it two ends, the one displaying the severity, and 
the other the goodness of God. From the first he w^as ' set 
for the fall,' as well as ' the rising again,' of many in Israel — 
for the enlightenment and salvation first, but if that failed, then 
for the growing hardness and aggravated guilt of the people." ^ 
Mr. Gladstone, the Christian statesman and scholar, re- 
marks in his criticism upon that original and very suggestive 

^Fairbairn. "And now comes," says Dean Alford, iu his interesting volume 
entitled " How to Study the New Testament," " a great and mighty change in 
our Lord's teaching to the people, recorded for us by St. Matthew alone. He 
had spoken plainly to them in the sermon on the Mount, and doubtless in many 
other discourses as he went up and down Galilee. But they had rejected his 
teaching, plain as it was. From time to time, therefore, he withdrew his plain 
speaking, and had recourse to a new and hidden method of teaching. The 
parahU was a lesson which might be heard and not heard; heard alike out- 
wardly by all, and yet differently by each, according to his capacity for appre- 
hending spiritual truth. Henceforth the Lord teaches in parables, explaining 
all in private to his disciples. And of these parables we have the richest col- 
lection in the thirteenth chapter of this Gospel, (Matthew.) There the whole 
idea and progress and destiny of the kingdom of heaven are unfolded. Its be- 
ginnings among men, in the parable of the 8i)wer; its counterfeits, and their 
treatment by us and by God, in that of the tares ; its vast outward extent, from 
the smallest beginnings, in that of the mustard seed; its inward purifying and 
transforming power, in that of the leaven; the two ways in w-hich men find it, 
one by chance in a field which he gives up all he has to buy, another by search, 
also giving up all to acquire it when found; and then, finally, the ultimate dt*s- 
tmy of the good and bad in it, in the parable of the draw-net.'' — How to Stuity 
Vit Xew Testament, page 62. 



THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 171 

rolumc lately published in England by an anonymous author 
and entitled "Ecce Homo :" "There is another characteristic 
of the parables. In all of the greater ones which present 
their subject in detail, Christ himself, when they are inter- 
preted, fills a much higher place than that simjjly of a teacher 
divinely accredited. They all shadow forth a dispensation, 
which, in all its parts, stands related to and dependent on a 
central figure ; and that central figure is in every Christ, iioids 

the supreme 

case but two our Saviour himself. He is the Jal-abies. ^''* 
sower of the seed, the owner of the vineyard, the house- 
holder, in whose field of wheat the enemy intermixed the 
tares; the lord of the unforgiving servant; the nobleman 
who went into a far country, and gave out the talents and 
said, 'Occupy till I come;' lastly, the bridegroom among the 
virgins, wise and foolish. In every one of these our Saviour 
appears in the attitude of kingship. He rules, directs, and 
furnishes all. He punishes and rewards. Every one of these, 
when the sense is fully apprehended, repeats, as it were, or 
anticipates the procession of the day of Palms, and asserts 
his title to dominion. They must be considered, surely, as 
very nearly akin, if they are not more than nearly akin, to 
declarations of his deity. Two others there arc which have 
not yet been mentioned. One is the parable of the house- 
holder, who i^lanted a vineyard and went into a far country, 
and sent his servants to receive his share of the produce. In 
this i^arable our Lord is not the master, but the master's 
heir, the person whose the vineyard is to be, and who 
being sent to perfonn the oflice in which other messengers 
had failed, is put to death by the cruel and contumacious 



172 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 

tenants.'' But this parable, if it sets forth something less 
than his kingship, also sets forth much more, and embodies 
the great mastery of his death by wicked hands. There is, 
also, the parable of a certain king which made a marriage 
for his son;^ a relation which involves far more than had 
commonly been expressed in his direct teaching among the 
people. Upon the whole, then, the proposition will stand 
good, that these parables differ from, and are in advance of, 
the general instruction respecting the person of the Redeemer 
in the first three Gospels, and place him in a rank wholly 
above that of a mere teacher, however true and holy. They 
set forth that difference from previous prophets and agents 
of the Almighty, which has been noticed by the apostle in 
his Epistle to the Hebrews, where he says that ' Moses verily 
w^as faithful in all his house as a servant ; but Christ as a son, 
over liis own house.' " " 

. In interpreting a jjarable it is necessary in the 

derstant/ "he first placc to thoroughly understand it — to have 

parable in all 

Us parts. ^ correct apprehension of the force of its different 

synibols. If it relates to a feast, the Jewish custom as to 
invitations, seats, garments, hours, must be distinctly in the 
mind. If it relates to natural history, a clear idea must be 
obtained of the nature of the tree or fruit or grain. For 
Parable of the illustration, in the parable of the wheat and the 

wheat and the 

tares. tarcs, great interest was added to it in a dis- 

course by Dr. Thomson (son of the author of the " Land ana 
the Book," who was himself born in Palestine, and often laid 

* Matthew xxi. * Matthew xxii. 

•"Ecce Homo," by the Eight Hon. W. E. Gladstouti page S'i. 



THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 1<3 

when an infant in the " manger " of a caravansera, or inn) by 
his explanation of the nature of the "tares" refen'ed to. 
They are a species of spurious and poisonous wheat, looking 
at first very much like the true grain in its early growth, and 
hardly to be distinguished from it as the crop is growing ; 
but its heads never fill out. While the true wheat, its ker- 
nels filling out, becomes heavy in its head, and bends upon 
the stalk, these false tares, with their light tops, stand impu- 
dently erect, and readily exjjose themselves in the harvest to 
the searching eye and gathering hand of the reaper. 

We must next discover from the context^ if possible^ or from 
the general scope of the parable, the exact idea that 

^ ^ '^ J- ' Second rule : 

the Saviour intended to illustrate or enforce, context ^'t'lle 

lesson which 

There is in every one of them a leading theme, the Saviour 

•^ o proposed to 

Ordinarily the Saviour states, either before or after 
he relates them, the object of their utterance. This, above all, 
is to be seized upon and made to be the key to unlock the vailed 
meaning of the story. Lisco, in his Commentary, Lisco upon 

the kernel ol 

says, " This is the center and kernel of the parable, the parable. 
and till it has been discovered and accm'ately determined we 
need not occupy om-selves with the individual parts, since 
these can only be seen in their true light when contemplated 
from the proper center. We may compare the whole para- 
bolical representation to a circle, the center of which is the 
divine truth or doctiine, and the radii are the several figura- 
tive traits in the narrative. So long' as we do not stand in 
the center, neither does the circle appear in an entirely round 
fonn, nor do the radii seem in their proper order, as all 
tending to the center, and in beautiful- uniformity : this i» 



174 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 

Becured wlien the eye surveys every tiling from tlie center : so 
it is precisely in the parable. If we have V)rought clearly and 
distinctly out its central point, its piincipal idea, then also the 
relative position and right meaning of its several parts be- 
come manifest, and we shall only dwell upon these in so far 
as the main theme can thereby be rendered more distinct." 

Thus the affecting and marvelously api3ropriate and beau- 
Main lesson tiful parables in the fifteenth chapter of St. Luke 

of parables in 

o/st. Luke!^* were called forth by the taunt of the Pharisees 
that Christ received smners, and ate with them. They un- 
fold, under a variety, but closely-related series, of illustra- 
tions, the reason for the course he had taken, which had 
called out the taunts of his unfriendly observers. And he 
shows that upon the most obvious principles of human 
nature, which even his foes must recognize, the merciful love 
and interest of God in behalf of the lost which he had mani- 
fested in his course toward the morally abandoned were 
justified. 

That most solemn parable of the rich fool, recorded m Uie 
^^'^^^^^^ chapter of Luke, was called out l)y the 
ric oo . impertinent interruption of one of his hearers, 

who, having become convinced of the divine authority of 
the speaker, lost all further interest in his subject, and 
simply desired to avail himself of his august decision in the 
division of his earthly inheritance with his brother. In view 
of this, how pertinent and how impressive was the Saviour's 
parable, prefaced by the words, " Take heed and beware of 
covetousness : for a man's life consisteth not in the abun- 
dance of the things that he possesseth ;" and closing with, 



THE WOED OF GOD OPENED. 175 

•* Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee : 
then whose shall those things be which thou hast provided ? "' 
In the instance of the parable in the twentieth of ]\[atthew, 
on account of the unfortunate interruption of the Savioui's 
remark by the opening of a new chapter, there is at first 
some difficulty in apprehending the connection and applica- 
tion of the illustration of the householder and The house- 
holder and 
liis laborers employed at different hours, espe- bis laborers. 

cially of the summing up : "So the last shall be first, and the 
first last : for many be called, but few chosen." By looking 
back into the close of the preceding chapter we find that 
Peter, noticing how much emphasis Christ, in his interview 
with the moral and amiable young ruler, had placed upon 
the giving up of all his property, with characteristic im- 
pulsiveness asks what reward should be their's who had 
already made this surrender ? The Saviour shows him that 
no sacrifice for his cause would go unrewarded in the heav- 
enly kmgdom ; but something more was required — service 
must be rendered with a proper spirit, be persevered in to 
the end, and the rewards of heaven must be submissively left 
in the Master's hand. Those whose abilities and opportuni- 
ties would seem to place them first will some of them be 
found to be last ; and those whose humble gifts and late call 
into the work might seem to throw them into the shade, 
may be found to be the first through faithful perseverance 
for many are called to Christian labor, but few enter upon it 
with the right spirit, and persevere imto the end. 

Thus it may be seen that each parable has its specific 
lesson, which it is vital for its comprehension to discover 



176 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 



^ndi^ Idual traits may sometimes be safely selected and made 
indi virtual the basis of discourse if care is taken to show 

;raits may 

fully used. the Connection in which they stand with regard 

to the unity of the entire representation. 

This thought naturally introduces the final remark, that 

great care should he taken not to interpret separate- 

pa'rts' ' must ^^j cind out of tlieiv relation to the story of the par- 

ict lie inter- 

j)iete(i out of Q^u the different incidents erribodied in it. The 

their coiinec- ' '*' 

great danger in expoundmg parables is in overdo- 



ing the thing. Every sentence of the story is made to have as 
ii:ij)ortant a function to perform as the whole parable itself.' 

Dr. Fairbairn remarks in reference to two parables which 
The character our Lord himself interprets : From them we see 

o: our Lord's 

parables.''" " that every specific feature in the earthly type 
has its correspondence in the higher line of things it repre- 
sents. Nothing, on the one hand, appears merely for orna- 
ment ; while, on the other, nothing is wire-drawn, or made to 
A^ar a meaning that seems too much for it." 

Such an intei^pretation is not to be justified as the one 
tliat finds in the fact that "five virgins were wise, and five 
Illustrations foolish," that just oue half of the number of 

jf false infer- 
ences- nominal Chiistians are true disciples, and the 

^ An illustration of this may be found in the peculiar cominentary just is- 
med by Eev. W. II. Van Doren upon the Gospel of 8t. Luke, entitled "A 
Suggestive Commentary." The touching: parables of the fifteenth chapter are 
fairly over laid and well-nigh deprived of force and beauty by the almost innu- 
merable " suggestions " made upon the different clauses in them. The concrete 
and touching pathos of the story is lost in the cunning ingenuity disclosed in 
cv'>lving nice shades of meaning out of the most natural and ordinary expres- 
si-'^s. Such commentaries have perhaps a "mission," but they need wise rueu 
lo be benefited and not abused by them. 



THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 177 

other half self-deceived or fallen from gi-ace. Neither may 

one infer from the parable of the sower that exactly one 

quarter of those that hear fail to receive the benefit they 

ought from the preaching of the word. 

Even Trench, whose work upon the parables is above 

commendation, errs at times in laying too much stress upon 

the subordinate sentences of the parable, and Trench's fan- 
ciful inteipie- 

sometimes in seeking a fanciful representation of parabie*of t i.'e 
a plain story. " Thus he makes the parable of tan. 
the good Samaritan teach the mission and example of 
Christ. The traveler is ' human nature, or Adam, the head of 
the race,' who leaves the heavenly city and falls into the 
power of Satan, and is all but killed. Christ now finds him 
and restores him. The wine is the blood which Christ shed, 
and the oil is the anointing of the Holy Spirit. The binding 
up is the sacraments of the Church. This is a link of 'the 
chains,' (traditionary interpretation,) for he quotes largely 
from the early fathers, and is carried away on the flowery 
stream of their rhetoric \\'ith great pleasure." Dobic, in his 
"Key to the Bible," from whence the preceding remark 
upon Trench is quoted, adds, " It is no small Little difficui- 

. ty in un<ler- 

consolation to reflect that the great mass of plain ||,'l"p*ie"nieMn^ 

people, who receive the Bible as the word of bie. 

God, find but little difficulty in comprehending the precise 
point aimed at in these Scriptures." 

Poetry. 

A very considerable portion of the Bible, especially of 

the Old Testament, is given to us in the form of poetry. 

12 



178 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 

This form of revealing truth has added to its attraction in 
all ages, and rendered it especially adapted to be 

Poetry of the '=' ' i J i. 

liibie. j^^^^i jj^ ^l^g memory, and to become an abiding 

comfort when the pious man finds himself deprived of the 
written text. 

Sir Patrick Hume, when, hid in a sepulchral vault, " he 
«!} p 1 1 k ^^^ ^^ light to read by, having committed to 
"'"®' memory Buchanan's Version of the Psalms, be- 

guiled the weary hours of his confinement by repeating them 
to himself, and to his dying day he could repeat every one 
without missing a word, and said they had been the comfort 
of his life by night and day on all occasions." * Probably no 
portion of the Scriptures has been so constantly quoted, or 
afforded so much consolation to the devout of all ages and 
countries, as the poetry of the Bible. The Psalms were read 
and sung by the Jews in their services from David's time, 
„ , and they have been read and sung by Christians 

Psalms sung •' o j 

jind'^hy frreat witli as much plcasurc and profit down to our 

variety of per- 
sons, (jj^y^ u Augustine," says Dean Stanley, " was 

consoled on his conversion and on his death-bed by the 

Psalms. By the Psalms Chrysostom, Athanasius, Savonarola, 

were cheered in persecution. With the words of a psalm 

Poly carp, Columba, Hildebrand, Bernard, Francis of Assisi, 

Huss, Jerome of Prague, Columbus, Henry V., Edward VI., 

Ximenes, Xavier, Melanchthon, Jewel, breathed their last. 

So dear to Wallace in his wanderings was his Psalter that 

during his execution he had it hung before him, and his eyes 

remained fixed upon it as the one consolation of his dying 

* Life of Sir P. Hume, as quoted by Stanley, i>age 161, second serieSk 



THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 179 

1 

hours. Tbn sixty-eighth psalm cheered Cromwell's soldiers 

to victory at Dunbar. Locke, in his last days, bade his friend 

to read the Psalms aloud, and it was while in wrapt attention 

to their words that the stroke of death fell upon him. Lord 

Burleigh selected them out of the whole Bible as his special 

^lelight. They were the frame-work of the devotion and of 

the war-cries of Luther ; they were the last words that fell 

on the ear of his imperial enemy, Charles V." ' 

The usual license allowed in the interpretation of all poetry 

must be given to the sweet singers of Israel : their ^^ ^^ .^^.^^ 

rich and figurative language is never to be bent cording to the 

laws of iheto- 

to the severe canons of a grammatical interpreta- "'^• 
tion such as might be applied to the history and to the 
epistles of the Bible. The ordinary figures of rhetoric, which 
are to be read in accordance with laws peculiar to them- 
selves and which are found in all our higher grammars, are 
to be recognized in the interpretation of poetic Scriptures. 
Here many fall into error in attempting to fasten ^^^ ^^ ^.^^^^^ 
a doctrinal statement upon the highly-figurative statement up. 

on figurative 

language of these poems. Dobie selects a few language, 
passages frequently used as proof-texts to show the habit of 
many religious writers in this respect : 

The wicked are estranged from the womb : 
They go astray as soon as born, speaking lies. 
Their poison is like the poison of a serpent: 
They are like the deaf adder that stoppeth her ear ; 
Which will not hearken to the voice of charmers, 
Charming never so wisely. — Psalm hiii, 3-5. 

Thou art he that took me out of the womb : 

Thou. didst make me hope on my mother's breasts. — Psalm zxii, 9. 

* History of the Jewish Church, second series. 



1.80 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 

Behold, I was shapen in iniquity, 

And in sin did my mother conceive me. 

Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean ; 

"Wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow. — Psalm li, 5, 7. 

For from my youth, he was brought up with me, 

As with a father; 

And I have guided the widow from my mother's womb. — Job xxxi, 19 

And dost thou open thine eyes upon such a one, 
And bringest me into judgment with thee ? 
Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean ? 
Not one. — Job xiv, 3, 4. 

What is man, that he should be clean 7 

And he born of woman, that he should be righteous ? — Job xv, 14. 

I have said to corruption, Thou art my father : 

To the worm, Thou art my mother, and my sister. — -Job xvii, 14. 

They are all gone out of the way ; 

They are together become unprofitable ; 

There is none that doeth good, no not one. 

Their throat is an open sepulchre ; 

With their tongues they have used deceit; 

The poison of asps is under their lips. — EoJi. iii, 12, 13. 

" These texts," the writer above mentioned remarks, " are 
made the proof-texts respecting man's character, without any 
allowance for the nature of the composition, or of the subject- 
matter of which they treat. But the most illiterate person 
must see that language such as the above is not the language 
of sober statement, but of highly-wrought jDoetic ejnotion, 
and for that reason it requires very cautious interpretation.'" 
To show still further the error of such a course, he quotes the 
following passages from the Psalms and Prophets, in which 
the impossibility of a literal rendering is at once seen : 

Moab is my wash pot ; 

Over Edom will I cast my shoe : 

Philistia, triumph thou because of me. — Psa. Ix, 8. 



THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 181 

Bat I am a worm, and no man ; 

\. reproach of men, and despised of the people. — Pba. xxii, 6. 

God came down from Teman, 

And the Holy One from Paran ; 

And his brightness was as the light. 

He had horns coming out of his head ; 

* nd there was the hiding of his power. 

Before him went the pestilence, 

And burning coals went forth at his feet 

He stood and measured the earth; 

He beheld and drove asunder the nations ; 

And the everlasting mountains were scattered, *• 

The perpetual hills did bow; 

His ways are everlasting. — Hab. iii, 3-6. 

"Let the naked letter be insisted on in such passages — 

and why not if in the other ? — and what absurdity would be 

the result ? We do not say that poetrv of neces- ECfect of lit- 
eral interpre- 

sity exaggerates even doctrinal statements. The vlrses-^*^ *"^^ 

inspired poetry of the Bible contains much doctrine, clearly 

and fairly stated in the best and most impressive forms. But 

due allowance must be made for the intensity of poetry when 

describing the character of man and the ways and attributes 

of God." 

Dr. Hibbard remarks, in his excellent work upon the 

Psalms, that the interpretation of the poetry of To be inter- 
preted in 

the Bible is less dependent on verbal criticism ^"hThe^feei- 
than on sympathy with the leelings oi the author psalmist. 
and a knowledge of his circumstances. " You must place 
yourself in his condition, adopt his sentiments, and be floated 
onward with the current of his feelings, soothed by his 
consolations, or agitated by the storm of his emotions. Youi 
attention is less directed to words than to thin;^s. The 



182 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 

meaning of the author is to be determined less by an appea 
to the niceties of philology than by the general scope." 

The poetry of the Bible has been divided into the poetry 
Two forms of ^^ ^^^ affcctions and the poetry of the imagina 
asinution and tion. Of the fonncr we have the Psalms, the 

of the aflfec- 

tions. Song of Solomon, and the Lamentations of Jere- 

miah, with detached passages here and there from the 
prophets. The poetry of the imagination is to be found in 
the book of Job, but especially in the prophetical writings. 
''They may be regarded as inspired epics, whose theme is 
the advent and triumph of a great Deliverer, whose glories, 
one after another, burst upon the eye of the prophet through 
the haze which envelopes the future." ^" 

In the Psalms every human affection finds an inspired 
Interpreted expression, and they should be inteipreted in 

in view of 

actedstic? view of this their main characteristic. " As every 
hue of the setting sun is reflected in the mirror of a glassy 
lake, so in the Psalms is reflected every phase of spiritual 
feeling, from the deepest humiliation under a sense of sin to 
the most triumphant rejoicing in the conquest of sin and 
death by a crucified and risen Messiah. Hope, fear, trust, 
sorrow, love of God, and hatred of evil, the plaintive mourn- 
ing of the dove, the roar of inner disquietude, the voice of 
joy and praise, alternate in these holy songs, and fmTiish 
expressions and stimulants for every mood of mind." " 
A knowledge The most important external aid for the right 

of thecircum- 

iS^omvo- understanding of the Psalms is a knowledge of 

eition valua- . -i t • i i 

bie. the circumstances under which they w^ere com* 

loGoulburn. »» Ibid 



THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 188 

I 

posed. What an additional interest it gives to the noble 
" Song of Moses " commencing, " I will sing unto the Lord, for 
he hath triumphed gloriously," to recollect that it was sung 
upon the banks of the Red Sea after Israel had passed through 
it upon dry land, and the hosts of the Egj-ptians were buried 
in the returning waves. Dr. Townsend has performed a fine 
service in his excellent Arrangement of the Bible (a work that 
ought to be in the hands of every interiDreter of Dr. Town- 

" J 1 send's Ar- 

the Bible) in introducing the Psalms into the his- orS!"' 
torical Scriptures at the period they are supposed to have 
been written. The events in the history of the Jewish nation 
form an admirable " setting," in which these songs of praise, 
or "songs in the night," appear in their best light. Dr. 
Hibbard, in his work ujjon the Psalms, has, with great 
assiduity, arranged the psalms in the order of their chronol- 
ogy, and preceded them with appropriate references to con- 
temporaneous events. 

Stanley, in his account of the reign of David, introduces 
with happy effect the psalms that marked the different ertis 
in the life and experience of the king. We can only select, 
from pages of great interest, the account of ^^^ ^^^^ j^^ 
the bringing of the ark of God into Jerusalem, saiem as^uu^- 

tiated by 

The event is related simply in 2 Sam. vi, 2, 18: Stanley. 
" David arose, and went with all the people that were with 
him from Baale of Judah, to bring up from thence the aik of 
God, whose name is called by the name of the Lord of hosts 
that dwelicth between the cherubim ;" and " he blesse( 
the people in the name of the Lord of hosts." "The 
psalms which directly and indirectly spring out of th- 



184 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 

event'" reveal a deeper meaning than the mere outivarJ 
ritual. It was felt to be the tm^ning-point in the history of 
the nation. Accordingly, as the ark stood beneath the walls 
of the ancient Jewish fortress, so venerable with unconquerod 
age, the summons goes up from the procession to the dark 
walls in front : ' Lift up your heads, O ye gates ! and be ye 
lifted up, ye everlasting doors 1 and the King of glory shall 
come in.' The ancient everlasting gates of Jebus are called 
to lift up their heads — their portcullis grates — stiflf with the 
rust of ages. They are to grow and rise with the freshness 
of youth, that their height may be worthy to receive the new 
King of glory. That glory, which fled when the ark was taken, 
and when the dying mother exclaimed over her new-born 
son, 'Ichabod !' '^ was now returning. From the lofty towers 
the warders cry, ' Who is this King of glory V The old 
heathen gates will not at once recognize this new-comer. 
The answer comes back, as if to prove by the victories 
of David the right of the name to Him who now comes to 
his own again, ' Jehovah, the Lord, the mighty One, Jehovah, 
mighty in battle ! ' and again by this proud title admission 
is claimed : ' Lift up your heads, O ye gates ! and be ye 
lifted up, ye everlasting doors ! and the King of glory shall 
come in.' Once more the guardians of the gates ref)ly, 'Who 
is the King of glory V And the answer comes back : ' Jeho- 
vah Sabaoth, the Lord of Hosts, he is the King of glory 1 ' 
This is the solemn inauguration of that great Name by which 
the divine nature was especially known under the monarchy. 
It was, indeed, as the sixty-eighth psalm describes it, a 

** Psalms XV, xxiv, xxix, xxx, Ixviii, cxxxii, and cxli. ^^ 1 Sam. iv, 21, 22. 



THE WOKD OF GOD OPENED. 185 

Bt'cond exoius. David was on that day the founder, not of 
freedom only, but of empire ; not of religion only, but of a 
Church and commonwealth. But there were revelations of a 
yet loftier kind even than this new name of the leader of the 
armies of Israel. The name of the Lord of Hosts, as revealed 
in the close of the twenty-fourth psalm, was destined itself to 
fade away into a dark silence when the hosts had ceased to 
fight and the empire of Israel had fallen to pieces. But in 
the hopes with which that same psalm is opened, and which 
pervades the fifteenth and the one hundred and first, the 
faith of David takes a higher and still wider sweep. As if 
in answer to the cry from the guardians of the gates, as he 
remembers the tabernacle which he had raised within the 
walls of his city to receive the ark after its long wanderings, 
as he sees its magnificent train mounting up to its sacred 
tent on the sacred rock, the thought rises within him of those 
who shall hereafter be the citizens of the capital thus con- 
secrated, and he asks, ' Who shall ascend into the mount of 
Jehovah ? Who shall stand in his holy place ? Who shall 
abide in thy tabernacle ? Who shall abide in thy holy tent ? ' 
The question is twice asked, the rej)ly is twice given ; ' He 
that hath clean hands and a pure heart ; who hath not lifted 
up his soul unto vanity, nor sworn to deceive his neighbor. 
He that walketh uprightly, and worketh righteousness, and 
speaketh the truth fi'om his heart. He that backbiteth not 
with his tongue, nor doeth evil to his neighbor, nor taketh 
up a reproach against his neighbor. He that despiseth a 
vile person, but honoreth them that fear Jehovah. He that 
sweareth to his otvti hurt and changeth not. He that put 



186 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 

teth not out his money unto usuiy, nor taketh a reward 
against the innocent. He that doeth these things shall 
never fall.' ^* Of these tests for the entrance into David's 
city and David's Church one only has become obsolete, that 
of not receiving usury. All the rest remain in force still — 
nay, it may even be said that the one qualification, repeated 
in so many forms, of the duty of truth, even in Chiistian 
times, has hardly been recognized with equal force as hold- 
ing the exalted place which David gives it. When at length 
the day is past, and he finds himself in his own palace, he 
there lays down for himself the rules by which ' he will 
walk in his house with a perfect heart.' The one hundred 
and first psalm was one beloved by the nol)lest of Russian 
princes, Vladimir Monomachos ; by the gentlest of English 
reformers, Nicholas Ridley. But it was its first leap into life 
that has carried it so far into the future. It is fiill of a stern 
exclusiveness, of a noble intolerance. But not against theo- 
logical error, not against uncourtly manners, not against 
political insubordination, but against the proud heart, the 
high look, the secret slanderer, the deceitful worker, the 
teller of lies. These are the outlaws fi'om King David'^ 
court, these alone are the rebels and heretics whom he would 
not suffer to dwell in his house, or tari-y in his sight : ' Mine 
eyes shall be upon the faithful of the land, that they may 
dwell mth me ; he that walketh in a perfect way he shall be 
my servant. I will early destroy all the wicked of the land, 
that I may cut off all wicked doers from the city of the 
Lord.' '^ Many have been the holy associations with which 

i« Psalms XV, xxii. »* Psalm ci, 6-8. 



THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 187 

the name of Jerusalem has been invested in apocal^Totic 
vision and Christian hymns, but they have their first his- 
torical ground in the sublime aspirations of its first royal 
Ibunder." *® 

This most interesting historical illustration of one series 
of the Psalms, from Stanley's very instructive History of the 
Jewish Church, shows how much light can be poured upon 
them, and how much beauty and force added to them, by a 
careful gathering of the incidents which formed the first 
occasions of their utterance. 

A marked peculiarity of the poetry of the Bible is a law 
which seems to pervade the whole of it, and is „ 

Parallelism 01 

denominated parallelism^ an understanding of ^*^'™^- 
which will afford great aid in the interpretation of the 
metrical portions of Scripture. By parallelism is meant the 
correspondence which one line, or a part of a verse, bears to 
another. The first line will commonly contain a distinct 
idea or proposition. The second will present the same idea, 
either more direct and literal, or else more obscure and enig- 
matical, or perhaps with some enlargement. Sometimes the 
law of contrast will obtain, and the second or parallel line 
will be the opposite of the idea contained in the first. In 
either case it will be seen that it becomes, as it is intended to 
be, explanatory of the other." 

Bishop Lowth presents three forms of parallelism. I. The 
fii-st he styles synonymous, and it embraces those First form: 

synonymous 

lines that coiTespond one to another by expressing paiaiieiisiu. 

i« History of the Jewish Church, Second Series, pages 95-98^ 
1^ Ilibbardon the Psalms, page 53. 



188 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 

the same sense in different, but equivalent terms; as, for 
illustration : 

Because I called and ye refused ; 

I stretched out my hand and no one regarded ; 

But ye have defeated all my counsel, 

And would not incline to my reproof : 

I also will laugh at your calamity ; 

I will mock when your fear cometh. — Peot. i, 24-26. 

Seek ye Jehovah while he may be found ; 

Call ye upon him while he is near : 

Let the wicked forsake his way, 

And the unrighteous man his thought; 

And let him turn to Jehovah, and he will compassionate him ; 

And unto our God, for he aboundeth in forgiveness, i ^ — Isa. Iv, 6, 7. 

In these selections it will be seen that the thought of the 
first line is repeated with some variations in the second, and 
FoiTietimes that of the third in the fourth, etc. Sometimes 

consists of 

four lines. the parallel consists of four lines, the last two 
answering to the first two, and making one verse : 

Be not moved with indignation against the evil doers; 

Neither be jealous at the workers of iniquity : 

For like the grass they shall soon be cut off ; 

And like the green herb they shall wither. — Psa. xxxvii, 1, 2. 

The ox knoweth his owner, 

And the ass the crib of his lord ; 

But Israel doth not know; 

My people doth not consider. — Isa. i, 3, 

This order is varied so that four lines will be followed by 
their four corresponding strains, and at other 

Eight lines. 

times the third line will respond to the first, 
and the fourth to the second. 

'* Bishop Lowth''s translation. 



THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 180 

As the heavens are high above the earth, 
80 high is his goodness over them that fear liim ; 
As i-emote as the east is from the west, 
So far hath he removed from us our transgressions. — PsA. ciii, 11, 12. 

II. The second kind of parallels he calls antithetic. These 
are the verses in which the two lines oppose „ 

^ ^ Second form: 

each other by a contrast of sentiments, as, antithetic. 

A wise son rejoiceth his father, 

But a foolish son is the grief of his mother. — Pbov. x, 1. 

Dr. Hibbard remarks that there is no one rule for the 
interpretation of the Proverbs of Solomon of more 

Peculiar to 

importance and miiversal application than this law ^""o^erbs. 
of parallelism. In many instances this rule of antithetic cor- 
respondence is the chief and only safe reliance of the expos- 
itor. Illustrations of this are to be found also in the Psalms. 

Some in chariots and some in horses, (do trust;) 

But we make mention of the name of the Lord our God. 

They are brought down and fallen ; 

But we are risen and stand upright — PsA. xx, 7, 8. 

in. The third form is styled syntTietic. It is where the 
parallelism consists only in a similaritv of con- 

* J J Third form: 

Btruction ; neither the words nor lines answer to synthetic. 
each other, but there is a correspondence and equality be- 
tween the different propositions, such as when the i)arts of 
speech answer to each other, a negative to a negative, and an 
interrogative to an interrogative. Bishop Lowth illustrates 
this form by the one hundredth and forty-eighth psalm : 

Praise ye Jehovah, ye of the earth I 
Ye sea-monsters, and all deeps 
Fire and hail, snow and vapor ; 
Stormy winds executing his command; 



190 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 

Mountains and all hills; 

Fruit trees and all cedars; 

Wild beasts and all cattle ; 

Eeptiles and birds of wing ; 

Kings of the earth and all peoples; 

Princes and all judges of the earth ; 

Touths and all virgins; 

Old men, together with the children ; 

Let them praise the name of Jehovah ; 

For his name alone is exalted ; 

His majesty above earth and heaven. 

The book of Job consists chiefly of this form of parallelism- 

With Him is wisdom and might ; 

To Him belong counsel and understanding, 

Lo ! he pulleth down, and it shall not be built; 

He encloseth a man, and he shall not be set loose. 

Lo ! he witbholdeth the waters, and they are diied up; 

And he sendeth them forth, and they overturn the earth. 

With him is strength and perfect existence ; 

The deceived and the deceiver are his. — Job xii, 13-16. 

It will prove a pleasant and instructive task to aiTange thb 
poetical portions of the Bible into metrical verses under 
these rules. In Townsencl's Arrangement the poetical Scrip- 
tures are presented in the form of verse, in accordance with 
the transhition in our received version. 

We can hardly leave the poetry of the Bible without a 
passincj reference to the " vindictive psalms," as 

Tl.e vindic- ^ ° . r ? 

txve psalms. ^^^^^ ^^^ called. There are, as it is well known, 
portions of these Scriptures in which the most terrible ven- 
geance is denounced upon enemies, extending to their wives 
and children, even down into the coming generations. No 
Christian man could use them in reference to personal enemies 



THE WORD OF GOD 0PE2sED. 191 

without transgressing tlie j)lainest teachings of tlie Bible, 
and bringing remorse upon his conscience. It is not a suffi- 
<.ient answer to say that these were the expressions of a dark 
r.t<e and a less merciful dispensation, for in the Not enoush 

to say they 

same book, and dropping from the same lips, the''age^^in 

„ which they 

are to be lound the sweetest, tenderest, most tor- were uttered. 

giving, and charitable sentiments ; and all these strains, it 

must be remembered, are inspired of the Holy Ghost, and 

are still profitable. There can be but one answer : These are 

not the expressions of personal wrath against personal foes. 

As in the instance of the awful and sweeping ^ot expres- 
sions of per- 
destruction of human life by the children of sonai wrath. 

Israel when they entered upon the possession of Canaan, 
there can be found no justification but in the di^'ine com- 
mand. God might have swept away a frightfully-depraved 
and sinful people by a pestilence, but this would have 
<«eemed to Israel as a natural event, and not a retributive 
'udgment ; but he committed the work into their hands, 
with an express statement of the reason for which he visited 
*his utter destruction upon the nations of Canaan; that they, 
unarmed and weak as they were, and yet easily, by God's 
help, overthrowing their foes, might never forget the ven- 
geance that he visited upon idolatry and impurity, nor the 
sure defense of Him who moved the floods aside for their 
passage across the Jordan, and made them terrible to God's 
foes and their own. So in these psalms, there is nothing in 
the sentiments of the religious men of the Old Testament 
dispensation, or in the prevailing religious expressions of the 
pf^almists themselves, to justiiy the opinion that they be- 



192 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 

The psalmists lievecl it right to curse their personal foes. 

themselves 

fiele "irri-ht T^^^j Were the enemies of God f\nd of his king- 
sonai foes. dom whoni they addressed. 

"Job considered it a great sin to indulge a revengeful spirit. 
* If I rejoiced at the destruction of him that hated me, or 
lifted up myself when evil found him ; neither have I suf- 
fered my mouth to sin by wishing a curse to his soul.' '" 
The law of Moses expressly commands kindly offices to 
enemies.'^" Solomon, also, says, 'If thine enemy be hungry, 
give him bread to eat ; and if he be thirsty, give him water 
to drink : for thou shalt heap coals of fire upon his head, 
and the Lord shall reward thee.'' ^^ ' Rejoice not when thine 
enemy falleth, and let not thine heart be glad when he stum- 
bleth ; lest the Lord see it, and it displease him, and he turn 
away his wrath from him. Say not I will do so to him, as 
he hath done to me : I will render to the man according to 
his work.' " "^"^ The great psalmist especially, as his treatment 
of King Saul bore witness, was an amiable, forgiving, noble- 
hearted man. 

These vindictive psalms have been the " songs in the 
Have been night " of the martyrs in all generations. They 

nsed by the *= J & J 

aiT ages.*^^^ "^ resouuded from the secluded mountains and re- 
cesses of Sotland, from the secret retreats of the Hu- 
guenots of France, from the fastnesses of the mountains of 
Tyrol and the Apennines, and from Tabor in Bohemia. 
Huss, Luther, and the long-suffering of every age have 
chanted these solemn and inspiring strains ol triumph 

>» Job xxxi, 29, 80. so Exod. xxiii, 4, 5. 

«> Prov. XXV, 21, 22. 22 p^ov. xxiv, IT, 18, 29 : see Hibbard on the Psalms 



THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 193 

against, not their own foes, but the enemies of God and of his 
Church. It is the same fearful language which ciirist used 

sucli laQ- 

the "XawZ* of God," when upon earth, who re- RuaKe. 
ceived sinners and ate with them, who came to seek and to 
save the lost, who died "wdth a prayer for his murderers 
upon his lips, used when address; ng the proud, incorrigible 
foes of God. These psalms set forth in divinely-guarded 
language God's abhorrence of wickedness, and the fearfiil 
judgments he will visit upon those who 2)ersist in it. 

In an elaborate article in the "Bibliotheca Sacra," for 
January, 1862, Professor Park treats the subject of the im- 
precatory psalms in an exhaustive manner. In Prof. Park on 

the inipreca- 

the openi ng of his paper, as i t was written during tory psalms. 
the civil war, he naturally alludes to the passing events fill- 
ing the thoughts and anxieties of the land, and remarks that 
there are crises in human life which bring out the hidden 
uses of such parts of the Bible as seem long ago to have 
been rendered valueless through the brighter light of a later 
dispensation. During the war, he says, "the imprecatory 
psalms have gained a new meaning. in the view of men who 
have been wont to regard them as unchristian. ^, , ^ 

° The late war 

Now the red planet, Mars, which had been un- Jj^ '"f 'tS 
noticed in our horizon, has reappeared; the lost i*^' '"^■ 
hymns have been found again. It is a new proof of tlie 
inspiration of the Bibb', that so many of its forgotten teach- 
ings have been commended to our regard by the martial 
scenes of the day." References to these terrible utterances 
of holy writ demand that the one who utters them shall 

feel the tenderest pitv for the sufF ring as well as a right- 

13 



194 THE WORD or GOD OPENED. 

eous indignation against wrong-doing. Unless our sym2)a- 
thies be aroused for the bleeding Protestants, we revolt from 
the sonnet of Milton ' on the late mjissacre in Piedmont:' 

• Avenge, O Lord, thy slaughtered saints, whose bones 

Lie scattered on the Alpine mountains cold ; 

Ev'n them who kept thy truth so pure of old, 
When all onr fathers Avorshipped stocks and stones. 
Forget not!'' 

Dr. J. J. Stewart Perowne, in his admirable work upon 
the Psalms, while affirming the impersonal and right- 
Perowne's eous indignation expressed in the imprecations 

view of these 

psalms. found in the Psalms, regards the spirit of them as 

ijpjnstified in the New Testament dispensation. " Surely," 
he says, "there is nothing in such an explanation which, 
in the smallest degree, impugns the divine autliority of the 
earlier Scriptures. In how many respects have tlie harsher 
outlines of the legal economy been softened down by the 
'mind that was in Jesus Christ.' How much is declared to 
be antiquated, even though it still stands for our instructi(m 
in the volume of the Bible. How clearly our Lord himself 
teaches us that his spirit and the spirit of Elijah are not 
the snme. Yet surely no prophet of the Old Testament 
occupies a higher place as an inspired messenger of God 
than the prophet Elijah. Our Lord does not condemn the 
prophet for his righteous zeal; he does forbid the manifes- 
tation of a like zeal on the part of his disciples. As in the 
Sermon on the Mount he substitutes the moral principle 
for the legal enactment, so here he substitutes the spirit of 
gentleness, meekness, endurance of wrong, for the spirit of 
iiery though righteous indignation." 



THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 195 

"An insulated imprecation repels men "who will be recon- 
ciled to it when they enter into such reasons for it as are 
intimated in Psa. ix, 13-30 ; x, 2 ; liv, 3." " 

The books of Proverbs and Ecclesiastes form the great 
divine repositories of inspired moral maxims. 

Proverbs and 

The histories and biographies of the Bible, as Ecclesiastes. 
we have said in another i)lace, do not give expression to the 
divine abhorrence of wrong-doing in the instance of those 
whose acts are recorded ; but in these books, in the most 
striking and pungent manner, and in a form to cling to the 
memory, as well as to impress the imagination, the judgment 
of God against every form of deceit and impurity is given. 
They are rendered even more impressive as being the results 
of human experience ; coming from the lips of the wisest, 
richest, most powerful, and most tempted of kings. It is to 
be feared that in modem days these consummate lessons of 
wisdom for the guidance and defense, especially of youth, do 
not receive the attention they should. 

We have already intimated the light that a knowledge of 
the oriental espousal and marriage customs will 

Solomon's 

shed upon that most incomprehensible, to many, ^°"^- 
of the books of the Bible, Solomon's Song. Isaac Taylor 
happily remarks that this song of pure conjugal love carries 
us back to Eden. In its pure and virgin arbors the king, 
turning away from the impure atmosphere of a fallen world, 
finds his subjects and his images. This poem would be 
entirely true to nature if man only were innocent, and woman 
always pure and loving. " If," says the well-known author 

'3 Bibliotheca Sacra, vol. xix, p. 207. 



196 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 

of the Histoiy ol' Enthusiasm, to whom we have alluded, " a 
half dozen heedlessly rendered passages of our English ver- 
sion were amended, as easily they might be, 

A few emen- 

tllxr'^^ would then the canticle would well consist throughout 

make it per- 
fect in its ex- with the purcst utterances of coniugal fondness. 

pression or -^ ^ <~j 

holy love. Happy would any people be among whom there 
was an abounding of that conjugal fondness which might 
thiis express itself." It is not as an expression of pure 
and innocent love merely that it finds its place in the canon, 
has held it persistently against many efforts to unseat it, and 
has been found to be a medium of expression among the 
Prized for its holicst of the saints of earth, but as the in- 

expression of 

spiritual life, spired illustration of the deepest and sincerest 

emotions of their spiritual life. It is to be interpreted in 

all the simplicity and purity of an early, well assorted, 

divinely instituted marriage, while under its folds of 

human love lays embalmed the divine symbol of Christ's 

relation to his Church and to the individual soul that 

pants for him. In this use of it " it has served to give 

animation and intensity, and warrant, too, to *the devout 

meditations of thousands of the most holy, and of the 

Isaac Taylor's purest miuds. Tliosc who have no conscious- 
view of the 
book. ness of this kind, and whose feelings and notions 

are all 'of the earth- -earthy,' will not fail to find in this 

book that which will suit them for purposes sometimes of 

mockery, sometimes of luxury, sometimes of disbelief. Quite 

unconscious of these perversions, and happily ignorant of 

them, and unable to suppose them possible, there have been 

multitudes of unearthly spirits to whom this — the most 



THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 197 

beautiful of pastorals — ^lias been not indeed a beautiful pas- 
toral, but the choicest of those words of truth which are 
' sweeter than honey to the taste,' and ' rather to be chosen 
than thousands of gold and silyer.' " ** 

Prophecy. 

The Bible is full of prophecy fulfilled or unfulfilled. 
Its histories are the records of the fulfillment 

Prophecy, 
of previous prophecies, and the Xew Testa- 
ment is the complement of the Old, in which its prophetic 
types and words are shown to have been fully met in the 
person of Christ, and the Gospel which he established. 

It not unfrequently occiu-s, however, in the New Testament, 
that an incident recorded in the Old, which in 

Illustrative 

some measure is repeated in the times of Christ, *^v'^"t'*- 
is said to be fulfilled. " Any thing," says Dr. Bloomfield, 
" may be said to be fulfilled if it admits of being appropri- 
ately applied." Thus in the second chaj)ter of Matthew ^e 
read, " Then was fulfilled that which was spoken 

Weepins of 

by Jeremy the prophet, saying, In Rama was ^='^^*^i- 
there a voice heard, lamentation and weeping, and great 
mourning, Rachel weeping for her children, and would not 
be comforted because they are not," In the prophetic vision 
of the weef)ing seer,'^^ the beloved wife of Jacob, the mother 
of Israel, by a striking figure is represented as rising from her 
grave and weeping over the slain of her children — slain 
in the invasions of their country by the foes whom God per- 
mitted to scourge them ; so in the times of the intant 
•< The Spirit of the Hebrew Poetry, page 233. a* Jer. xxxi, 15. 



1.98 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 

Redeemer, when Herod's sword was reeking with the blood of 
the children of Judea, slain around the very grave of Rachel, 
near Bethlehem, this sad mother is said to rise and weep 
again, and the vision of the prophet is once more realized. 
The quotation in the fifteenth verse of the same chaj^ter of 
Matthew is another instance of the same form 

Calling out of 

Egypt. ^^ fulfillment, or renewed realization : " That it 

might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the 
prophet. Out of Egypt have I called my son." The depart- 
ure of Israel from Egypt mider Moses, of which Hosea 
speaks,'^^ was not a direct prophecy nor type of our Redeem- 
er's brief residence in that country, but a coincident fact, 
full of profitaljle and grateful suggestion, and illustrating 
our Lord's departure from the Holy Land and return to it. 

Fulfilled prophecy is best intei-preted by histoiy. The 
History inter- rccords of Jcwisli, Assyi'ian, Persian, Grecian, 

prets fulfilled 

prophecy. Roman, and modern history, and the ruins and 

desolations of many countries like Palestine and Egypt, and 
cities like Tyre and Babylon, afford the best means for a correct 
interpretation of the insj)ii"ed visions which it pleased God to 
bestow upon the ancient seers, and which have been signally 
fulfilled. The prophet himself evidently did not always 
understand the force of the words or the symbols which he 
used.'^^ The idea of exact time was not in the 

Prophet _ no 

idea of time, prophet's mind, for the commencement of Mes- 
siah's reign upon earth and the glorious universal triumph 
of the Gospel are announced in the same passages. It was 
partly for this reason that the Jewish interpreter, eagerly 
a« Hosea xii, 13. s'^ 1 Peter i, 10, 11. 



THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 199 

seizing upon the tiiumplis of the promised royal seed of 
David as connected with the advent of Messiah, overlooked 
the humiliation and suffering which he must first undergo. 
That manifestation of the Son of David is yet, after nineteen 
hundred years, an ol.>ject of faith and not of sight. 

It is evident that prophesy is not given in terms so definite 
as to be readily understood, except as to its general scope. 
There is not a more definite prophecy tlian Daniel's as to the 
time of the coming of the Messiah ; yet our Lord, when justi- 
fying to his forerunner his claim to the exalted character of 
Him " that was to come," appealed not to Dan- Jesus did not 

appeal to the 

iel's symbolical beasts, or to his mysterious fig- i^ini^l "^ 
ures, but to the mimcles of mercy, lying here and there 
upon the bosom of prophecy, which he was then fulfilling. 
Christ's own prophecies and those of the lx)ok of Revela- 
tion are of the same nature. They point out a future with 
a dark, heavy, crimson foreground, but with a golden and 
glorious distant horizon. The destruction of Jerusalem, and 
the final successive subsidence, in connection prophecies of 

the New Tes- 

with nmch human sorrow and Christian disci- tament. 
pline, of other earthly kingdoms, down to the hour of the fall 
of the last foe and the sublime installation of Christ's uni- 
versal kingdom, amid the halleluiahs of angels and re- 
deemed men, are set forth in natural and somewhat mys- 
terious symbols in the last discourses of our Lord and the 
prophecies of John the Evangelist. 

Prophecy was not intended to be history, but an index or 
gnomon pointing in the direction of the Divine 

Prophecy not 

Providence. It was intended, by the assurance ^^=^'"^- 



200 THE WOKD OF GOD OPENED. 

it affords when its terms are fulfilled by the occurrence ot 
events, to establish the faith of God's people as to his con 
trol of human affairs, as to the inspiration of his word, as to 
his abundant power to make even the wrath of man praise him, 
Points to the and also to sive courage and comfort to the pco- 

triuniph of ° ° ^ 

truth!^*'* plc of God in reference to the future. However 

discouraging the condition of the Church at any given period, 
and however an-ogant and numerous her foes, the servants of 
tlie most high God have a " sure word of prophecy " shining 
like a bright light upon a dark future, and giving them abso- 
lute assurance of the final triumph of Christian truth. 

The sad mistakes to which we have heretofore alluded, 
arising out of a too confident reliance upon a literal render- 
ing of projjhetic symbols — the absolute errors into which 
learned and good men have fallen when apf>arently resting 
upon the exact demonstrations of scriptural figures — should 
Tiie hour of teach US the truth of the saying of our Lord, that 

Christ's com- "^ ^ ' 

veaied.^*^ ^^ wMiilc Ms comiug will certainly be experienced, 
with all its attendant circumstances, the specific hour has not 
been revealed.^® It seems to have been the intention of the 

'8 Matt, xxiv, 36. " But the key," says T)r. Whedon in his supplementary 
note to his comments upon the twenty-fifth chapter of Matthew, " to the whole 
mystery (in reference to the time of Chrisfs second coming) is furnished in 
2 Peter iii, 8, where, in regard to this very point, Peter reminds us that ' one 
day with the Lord is as a thousand years.' (Not that a day in prophecy, as some 
teach, is an exact symbol of a thousand years, but that time is without human 
measure in God's mind.) Scoffers in the last days, he tells us, would raise this 
very objection : ' Where is the promise of his coming ? ' Peter replies by inform- 
ing us that the distance of the event is to be measured by the arithmetic of God. 
One day is as a thousand years, and language that would seem to intimate a 
feto days may really embrace a/e^v ihonsdndN or myriads of years. If it be 
true that both Christ and his apostles have warned us that the time jf the second 



THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 201 

Holy Spirit that in all ages, even the apostolical, the Church 
should be looking for and loving the appearing of the Son 
of God, and purifying herself in the expectation of it. " Only 
a few years ago," says Dobie, " the year and the day were 
confidently fixed when the trumpet should sound and the 
voice of the Son of God be heard calliug the world to judg- 
ment. It is only as yesterday that the eloquent Irving, with 
saintly and joyous countenance, was wont to stand for hours 
together on his balcony, looking toward the east, ^rvin? on tiie 

oraing of 

momentarily expecting to see the glorious white Christ. 
throne, and the retinue of attending angels, and the ever- 
blessed Redeemer coming in the glory of the Father to judge 
the living and the dead. And now another prophet has risen 
up, and by him we are confidently assured from a devout and 
prayerful study of the prophets that the second coming of 
Christ and the end of the jjresent system will probably take 
place in 1865. (The writer refers to the eloquent 

Dr. Cumming, 

Dr. Cumming, of London, whose date has now J^kt^^'i^e- 
l)een passed some three years; but, not discouraged, he still 
fixes it again in the near future.) The data of this and all 
other similar calculations are found in Dan. xii, 11, com- 
pared Avdth Rev. xii, 5; xiii, 18; and xx, 4. But by a 
cui*sory inspection of these passages it will be seen that any 
calculation of the year when this world shall end must be 
very, if not purely, arbitrary, inasmuch as there is no direct 

advent was to them unrcvcaled and unkno^vn — if they use in abundance 
terms indicatinsr an indefinite distance — if they themselves furnish the solution 
of all their expressions intimating its near proximity — all objections to their in- 
fallibility in regard to other subjects upon which they speak with professed 
inspiraition are nugatory and captious*" 



202 THE WOKD OF GOD OPENED. 

reference to that event in these passages whatever. All that 
the Bible iustifies us in believing respecting tlie 

Bible viiw of '' o i o 

the end. termination of the present world is, that there 

is a certain grand result to be reached in the histoiy of our 
race, a general dispersion of the ignorance of men and a 
triumph over the wickedness that reigns in the earth ; and 
that after an extended period of peace and holiness, very 
suddenly and unexpectedly the angel of God will summon 
both the living and the dead to judgment. Then will come 
the end, the dissolution of the present system in liquid fire, 
and the final retribution of the last day, dispensed in right- 
eousness by our Lord Jesus Christ/' '^'^ This may, and may 

29 Key to the Bible, pages 202, 203. -"The Bible," says Bernard, "is one 
long account of the preparation of the city of God. That is one distinct point 
of view from which the Bible ought to be regarded, and one from which its 
contents will appear in clearer light. We are accustomed in the present day to 
read it too exclusively from the individual point of view, as the record for each 
man of that will of God and that way of salvation with which he is personally 
concerned. This it is, but it is more than this. It places before us the restora- 
tion not only of the personal, but of the social life ; the creation not only of the 
man of God, but of the city of God ; and it presents the society or city not aa 
a mere name for the congregation of individuals, but as having a being and life 
of its own, in which the Lord finds his satisfaction and man his perfection. 
The 'Jerusalem which is above' is, in relation to the Lord, 'the bride, the 
Lamb's wife ;' (Eev. xxi, 9 ;) and in relation to man, it is ' the mother of us all.' 
Gal. iv, 36. In its appearance the revealed course of redemption culminates, 
and the history of man is closed ; and thus the last chapters of the Bible declare 
the unity of the whole book by completing the design which has been developed 
in its pages and disclosing the result to which all preceding steps have tended. 
Take from the Bible the final vision of the heavenly Jerusalem, and what will 
fiave been lost ? Not merely a single passage, a sublime description, an impor- 
tant revelation, but a conclusion by which all that went before is interpreted 
and justified. We shall have an unfinished plan, in which human capacities 
have not found their full realization, or divine preparation their adequate result. 
But as it is, neither of these deficiencies exists. The great consummation is 



THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 203 

nut, be the order of events. This millennial reign may come 
before or after Christ's advent. The former is ^ • •. , ^ 

Spiritual and 

Lhe widely-received spiritual view of the prophe- ' ^^"^ ^'*^" ' 
::ies , the latter the view of Millenarians, many of whom do 
not, however, attempt to designate the period when Chi-ist 
will make his aj)pearance. 

But the study of proj^hecy is profitable, although we may 
not be able to read it as we would history. It is prophecy a 

profitable 

given, the most of it, in the sublimest strains of study. 
poetry ever written, and is to be interpreted according to 
the rules already laid down for this style of composition. 
What higher or more spiritual or practical conception of the 
glory and holiness of Almighty God can he found than that 

there, and we are instructed to observe that from the first the desires of men 
and the preparations of God have been alike directed toward it. At the begin- 
ning of the sacred story the fother of the faithful comes forth into view, fol- 
lowed by those who are heirs with him of the same promise ; and they separate 
themselves to the life of strangers, because they are 'looking for a city which 
hath foimdations, whose builder and maker is God.' In due time solid pledges 
of the divine purpose follow. We behold a peculiar people, a divinely-framed 
polity, a holy city, a house of God. It is a wonderful spectacle, this system of 
earthly types, thus consecrated and glorified by miraculous interventions and 
inspired panegyrics. Do we look on the fulfillment of patriarchal hopes or on 
the types of their fulfillment? on the final form of hunoan society or on the 
figures of the true? The answer was given by prophets and psalmists, and then 
by the word of the Gospel, finally by the hand of God, which swept the whole 
system from the earth. It was gone when the words of the text were written, 
and when the closing scene of the Bible presented the New Jerusalem, not as 
the restoration, but as the antitype of the old. Thii vision teaches us that the 
drama of the world must be finished, and its dispensation closed, that the Lord 
must have come, the dead have been raised, the judgment have sat, the heaven 
and earth which are now have passed away, and the new creation have appeared, 
before the chosen people shall see the city of their habitation." — Progress oj 
Doctrine in the New Tentament, page 219. 



204 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 

presented by the prophet Isaiah, when in the commencement 
of his prophetic mission, "In the year that King Uzziah 
died," he had that sublime ^dsion in the temple.^" Before 
Ids wondering gaze " the vail of the temple was withdraw n 
ani the holy of holies discovered to the prophet's eyes, and 
he saw the Lord sitting as a kmg upon his throne actually 
governing and judging. His train, the symbol of dignity 
and glory, filled the holy place ; while around him hovered 
the attendant seraphim, spirits of purity, zeal, and love, 
chanting in alternate choii's the holiness of their Lord ; the 
threshold vibrated with the sound, and the ' white cloud ' of 
the divine Presence, as if descending to mingle itself with 
the ascending incense of prayer, filled the house. The eter- 
nal archetypes of the Heljrew's symbolic worship were re- 
vealed to Isaiah ; and, as the center of them all, his eyes saw 
the King, the Lord of Hosts, of whom the actual rulers from 
David to Uzziah had beeii but the temporary and subordinate 
viceroys. In that Presence even the spirits of the fire whicli 
consumes all impurities, while none can mix with it, cover their 
faces and their feet, conscious that they are not pm"e in God's 
sight, but justly chargeable with imperfection; and much 
more does Isaiah shrink from the aspiring thoughts he had 
hitherto entertained of his fitness to be the preacher of that 
God to his countrymen — he, a man of unclean lips, sharing 
the uncleanness of the people among whom he dwells. In 
utter self-abasement he realizes the exceeding sinfulness of 
sin, and the utter sej)aration it makes between man and the 
holy God." " 

•° Isaiah vi. 3i Sir Edward Strachey'a Hebrew Polities, page 19. 



THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 205 

Prophecy is really a grand epic, with many acts and a 
variety of scenes, but with a divine unity. Imagination can 
find in no human work so fine a field for its highest and 
purest conceptions. Christ is the great central personage in 
the extended poem, written by different hands, but always 
preserving the divine unities. His kingdom in all its for- 
tunes, adverse and prosperous, is set forth. His own mar- 
velous history from the manger to the cross, his providential 
government, and his final universal triumph and coronation 
in his own New Jerusalem, where his hapj^y followers " need 
no candle, neither light of the sun, for the Lord God giveth 
them light," " and there shall be no night there," are pre- 
sented throughout the long poem, commencing in Eden and 
ending in the Apocalypse. 

Dr. Schaff remarks of the Book of Revelation that it sur- 
passes all the other prophetic writings in harmony, elevation, 
fullness, unity of view, progress of action, majesty of style, 
and, above all, in the direct relation of all parts of the pic- 
ture to the central figure of the crucified and now gloiified 
Christ, who rules the whole history of the world and the 
Church, and is alpha and omega, the beginning and the end. 
He goes on to say that " in a succession of visions and mys- 
terious allegories it unfolds before the reader the Dr. Schaff up- 

on the Ueve- 

gr<!at epochs of the kingdom of God on earth to i^iuon. 
the close of its earthly development. Its burden is the com- 
forting truth that the Lord comes, the Lord fights, the Lord 
conquers and leads his Church through tribulation and per- 
secution to certain victory and eternal glory." He also 
remarks that the value of the ];ook is quite distinct from any 



206 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 

human exposition of its prophecies ; that it was n* c designed 
to gratify idle curiosity concerning the future, but for a 
practical, religious end. " Prophecy," he says, " ii. the nature 
of the case, remains more or less obscure until it is fulfilled. 
And as the Old Testament became clear only in the New, so 
the Revelation of John can be perfectly understo jd only in 
the triumphant and glorified Church. Still it pis been a 
book of consolation and hope to the Church mili'-i? jt in every 
age, especially amid her great persecutions and Fojuggles; 
and it will remain so till the Lord come again in glory, and 
the New Jerusalem come down fi'om heaven as a bride 
adorned for her husband. He who cannot lie assures his 
people, ' Lo, I come quickly. Amen,' And his people answei 
with the holy longing of a bride for her sj)ouse, ' Yea ; come. 
Lord Jesus !' " '^ 

•a Histoiy of the Christian Church, vol. i, p. 108, 



TITE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 207 



CHAPTER YIII. 

THE BIBLE IN THE WORLD'S LITEEATUKE. 

'PHE Christian world is presenting an anomalous spectacle 
-^ at the present hour. There never was a period when 
her sacred volume, embodying the world's faith and salva- 
tion, had so wide a distribution, or was exer- Bible never 

before so 

cising so mighty an influence upon the world's tributed!*^^ 
civilization and progress. Nations, both Christian and un- 
christian, that heretofore have forbidden the introduction of 
the Bible, have ceased their opposition, and the leaves from 
the tree of life for the healing of the nations are falling upon 
every land. In more than two hundred different languages 
the peoples of the earth are permitted to read the word of God 
"in their own tongue, in which they were bom." By a 
divine conviction as to its authority and power, which unites 
nearly all the branches of the visible Church in wonderful 
harmony of sentiment and charity, the great societies of 
England and America are enabled to keep their groaning 
presses constantly in motion in the multiplication of editions 
of this maiTelous book. 

Wliile all this is manifest, at the same moment we behold 
one of the fiercest, most systematic, and bitter 
attacks upon the Christian Scriptures in the 
three leading modem tongues — English, German, and 
French — carried on with extraordinary vigor, and with 



Bitter attaclc 
upon it. 



203 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 

some outward manifestations of a limited success, "There 
is," says an earnest writer in the British Quarterly lievieio, 
"coming upon the Cliurch a current of doubts deeper far 
and darker than ever swelled against her before — a current 
strong in learning, crested with genius, strenuous, yet calm 
in progress. It seems the last grand trial of the truth of our 
faith. Against the battlements of Zion a motley throng 
have gathered themselves together. Socinians, Atheists, 
doubters, open foes and bewildered friends are in the field, 
although no trumpet has openly been blown, and no charge 
publicly sounded. There are the old desperadoes of infi- 
delity — the lost followers of Paine and Voltaire ; there is the 
stolid, scanty, and sleepy troop of the followers of Owen ; 
there follow the Communists of France, a fierce, disorderly 
crew ; the commentators of Germany come, too, with pick • 
axes in their hands, saying, 'Raze it, raze it to the founda- 
tions.' There you see the garde-mobile, the vicious and vain 
youths of Europe. On the outskirts of the fight hangs, 
cloudy and uncertain, a small but select band, whose wa- 
vering surge is surmounted by the dark and lofty crest of 
Carlyle and Emerson. 'Their swords are a thousand,' their 
purposes are various. In this, however, all agree — that Chris- 
tianity and the Bible ought to go doAvn before advancing 
civilization." The weight of this mighty movement, how- 
ever, comes fi'om ^^dthin rather than from without the 
nominal Church, Unbelief at this hour is baptized, and 
Foes under ^ims her powcrful blows against the very foun- 

the parb of 

friends. dations of the Christian faith, in the pretense oi 

laboring in the interests of Christianity herself. These suIh 



THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 209 

tie foes, says Tullidge, have skillfully adapted their attacks 
to the refinement and intelligence of the age, and with a 
great show of learning and science, and not seldom under 
the garb of reverence for the Bible and adherence to Chris- 
tianity, have aimed the most deadly blows against the 
records of our faith, Colenso is a bishop of the Protestant 
Episcopal Church, Theodore Parker was an ordained min- 
ister over the " Twenty-eighth Congregational Church of 
Boston;" and Dr. Peabody very truly remarks, that the 
author of the " Age of Reason," if he had lived at this day, 
might have published his tracts over the title of Rev. 
Thomas Paine, and occupied a professedly Christian pulpit. 
The double object of the present crusade (which is, after all, 
but one, for the Bible is Grod's word written, and Christ is 
the word made flesh) is to secure a religion without a Bible, 
and a Gospel without a Christ, Rev. Mr. Frothingham says 
he " reads the Bible as any other book, criticises it, judges it, 
but expects no superhuman wisdom from it, and Q,,:^t ^f ^j. 
will not call it the word of God, or the book in ciuist and 

the word of 

which the words of God are especially written," ^*'*^- 
Another of the same school, in their organ, the " Radical," 
blasphemously remarks, " It is time to let Jesus rest, Jesus 
is made a stumbling-block to the generation." "He does 
not wish to hear any more about him." It is the same 
condition of things now as in apostolic times : to the un- 
believer Christ is still a stumbling-block, and to the infidel 
foolishness. 
It is affirmed with some appearance of truth, by the 

Westminster Beciew^ that the great body of the "mental 

14 



210 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 

food of the day — science, history, morals, poetry, fiction, 
and essay — is prepared by men who have long ceased to 
believe." 

The divine authority of revelation, the authenticity and 
genuineness of the various books composing it, form the 
main object of attack. A German writer has aptly re- 
marked : "^ One period has fought for Christ's sepulcher, 
another for his body and blood, the present period contends 
The era of the fof his woid." And this is, indeed, the great 

contest for 

the word. question of the hour. The author of Liber Li- 

brorum closes his volume with the forcible remark, " The 
truth or falsehood of the Bible, its worth, or its worthless- 
ness, is- the great question of the day. It is not too much to 
affirm that the life or cleath of modern society hangs upon 
the issue." 

We have not a moment's hesitation or anxiety as to the 
result. The world has not been redeemed to be throMTi 
away. Too marked a Providence has guarded the Holy 
Scriptures in darker hours than the present to yield them 
now to miholy hands. " The gates of hell shall not prevail " 
against them. " Heaven and earth shall pass away," but 
Christ's " words shall not pass away," There has not been a 
No occasion generation since these holy writings have assumed 

to be anxious - . . 

for the result, the form of a distinct and completed revelation m 
which they have not been fiercely attacked, but their foes 
have been shattered like the surges of the sea beating against 
a mighty reef, while they have remained unmoved as the 
" Rock of Ages." " The waves of the sea are mighty, and 
rage terribly ; but the Lord who sitteth on high is mightier.'' 



THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 2H 

Tl is an encouraging fact, that while the foes of the Bible aro 
anited like Herod and Pilate in their enmity toward the 
word of God, they are hopelessly divided in the weapons 
they use to accomphsh their object. In nothing is the 
weakness of the argument against the Bible more manifestly 
seen than in the lack of agreement among its foes. The 
French school denounces the German, and the English both 
the others ; while different writers in the various nations 
utterly disagree among themselves, and strenuously affirm 
the folly of all theories save their own. 

But the Bible has gained, as it always must, from these 
attacks. " They that be with us are more than Bible gained 

from ttiese 

they that be with them ;" and '' if God bo for attacks. 
us, who can be against us ? " If Geraiany has produced a 
Strauss, a Bruno, a Bauer, an Eichhorn, a Paulus, and a 
Schenkel, she has also given for the defense of God's word 
a Tholuck, a Hengstenberg, a Neander, an Olshausen, a Stier, 
a Lange, a Ritter, and hundreds of others less prominent, but 
constantly thi-owiug their sanctified literature as a healthful 
leaven into the intellectual and religious life of the continent. 
If Renan has turned the Gosi3el story into a romance, and 
made the principal actor a weak enthusiast and deceiver, 
Guizot and a Pressens^ and others have immediately prof- 
fered to France more than an eflFectual antidote. The tracts 
and essays of too liberal Christians in England, the irreverent 
WTitings of Theodore Parker, the sad oracles of the authoress 
of " Broken Lights," the raw mathematics of Colenso, have 
awakened into life the most vigorous and brilliant pens of 
the age : Westcott, Ellicott, Lee, Rogers, Buchanan, Isaac 



212 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 

Taylor, and Bayne ; the preachers of the successive Boyle and 
Bampton University Lectures, Alford, M'Cosh, Fisher, and the 
Qnannounced authors of Ecce Deus, Ecce Homo, Liber Li- 
brorum, et id omne genus, whose names one cannot number. 
It will be understood, of course, in presenting this list of 
names, that we do not indorse or accept all the lines of 
defense chosen by the writers which w^e have enumerated, 
particularly in the case of the anonymous authors, but men- 
tion them as gallantly accepting the challenge thrown down 
by the enemies of the Chiistian Scriptures. 

Indeed, one of the most striking evidences of the divine 
This prodigious origin and power of the Bible is the prodigious 

literature an ° '^ i o 

d[vine origfn!'^ literature which it has gathered around itsel£ 
Coming for the most part, as its different books have, from 
the pens of unlearned men, without the training of the 
schools, it has gained the most amazing hold upon the 
human intellect and heart, and set in motion, in all ages, the 
most powerful and polished minds in explanation, illustra- 
tion, and defense of its truths and revelations. How true are 
those expressive words of the apostle Paul, " The word of 
God is quick and powerful ;" that is, it is quickening, life- 
giving, inspiring! What an immense proportion of the 
literature of the world would leave its libraries if all growing 
du-ectly out of the Holy Scriptures should be removed. 
How has it quickened the human mind in the whole field 
of the natural sciences and of philosophy ! To defend or 
attack the Scriptures what an interest has been taken in the 
study of astronomy ! Wliat an inspiration the friends and 
foes of the Bible have felt in the study of geology, from its 



THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. •' 213 

apparent relation to the early chapters of Genesis. The 
secrets of chemistry have been searched in the hope of pro- 
ducing life wdthout seed, and thus impugning the records of 
Moses. Every theory of mental philosophy is at once drawn 
out into line for the defense or overthrow of the doctrines of 
Scripture. Philology, the origin and antiquity of the race, 
history and geography, numismatics, in short, the whole 
circle traversed by human thought and investigation, have 
been quickened into life by the words of Him of whom it 
was said, " In him was life ; and the life was the light of 
men." 

No book of human authorship could bear up such a litera- 
ture. The only other volume that may be said to have a 
literature of its own, which stands at the head of human 
productions for the universality and power of its influence, 
only serves to show more significantly the superhuman 
vitality of the Bible. "Wlio will think for a its influence 

compared with 

moment of comjiaring the influence of Shaks- Shai^speare. 
peare with that of the Bible ? But what is the secret of thie 
power of this writer, and whence did he derive it? Ad 
English clergyman. Rev. T, R. Eaton, has written a book 
entitled "Shakspeare and the Bible," in which he seeks to 
show how touch the immortal bard was indebted to the 
Scrij)tures for his illustrations, rhythms, and modes of ex- 
pression. The author aflirms that Shakspeare went first to 
the word and then to the works of God. " In shaping the 
truths derived from these sources," says an intelligent phy- 
sician, " he obeyed the instinct implanted by Him who had 
'brmed him Shakspeare. Hence his power of ins])iring us 



214 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 

with sublime affection for that which is properly good, and 
of chilling us with horror by his fearful delineations of evil. 
Shaksjjeare perpetually reminds us of the Bible by an eleva- 
tion of thought and simplicity of diction which are not to be 
found elsewhere." ^ Rev. Mr. Eaton points out hundreds of 
quotations, allusions, and parallelisms in his works, showing 
Shakspeare's familiarity with Scripture, his fondness for it, 
and the almost unconscious recurrence of it to his mind. 

Few short poems have impressed thoughtful men more 
than the " Elegy in a Country Church-yard," by Gray, the 
poet. It has been translated into a number of languages. 
Dr. Johnson read it with pleasure, and Mr. Webster had his 

son read it to him upon his death-bed. We 
Gray's Elegy. 

are pleased to call to mind the fact that the 

young and cultivated General Wolfe, while sailing down the 
St. Lawrence on the eve of his great victory upon the Heights 
of Abraham, recited the verses of this poem aloud, and said 
at their close, " Now, gentlemen, I would prefer being the 
author of that poem to the glory of beating the French to- 
morrow !" Gray was a fine scholar, a graduate of Cambridge, 
England, was cultivated by travel and constant study after 
he left the University, and yet it was eight years from the 
time he commenced this poem before he finished it and 
allowed it, under the most searching revision, to be put in 
print. But now let us turn to only one of the many psalms 
unequaled in beauty. Take, for instance, the twenty-third, a 
psalm of David. It was evidently written at a sitting. It is 
the production of a man brought up among the flocks and 

» C. C. Bombangh, A.M., M.D. 



THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 215 

conversant with the humblest society. He owed little tc 
human training, and had no classical models upon which 
he might form his style, or from which he might receive 
his inspiration, "This ode," says Isaac Taylor, "is not 
to be matched in the circuit of all literature. In its way 
down tlirough three thousand yeai-s or more this psalm 
has penetrated to the depths of millions of hearts ; it has 
gladdened homes of destitution and discomfort; it has 
whispered hope and joy amid tears to the utterly solitary 
and forsaken, whose only refuge was in heaven. Beyond all 
range of probable calculation have these dozen 
lines imparted a power of endurance under suffer- ^* ""• 
ing, and strength in feebleness, and have kept alive the 
flickering flame of religious feeling in hearts that were nigh 
to despair. The divine element herein embodied has given 
proof, millions of times repeated, of its reality and of its 
efficacy as at. formula of tranquil trust in God, and of a grate- 
ful sense of his goodness, which all who do trust in him may 
use for themselves, and use it until it has become assimilated 
to their own habitual feelings. Thus it is that throughout all 
time past, and all time to come, this psalm has possessed, and 
will possess, a life-given virtue tow^ard those who receive it, and 
whose own path in life is such as life's path most often is." 

The renowned philologian Henry Stephanus, who wrote an 
exjjosition of the Psalms in 1563, remarks " that in the whole 
compass of poetry there is nothing more poetical, 
more musical, more thrilling, and in some pas- *' *'""*' 
sages more full of lofty inspiration than the psalms of 
David." The great German historian, John voa Mueller^ 



216 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 

writes in a letter to his brother; "My most delightful hcrni 

every f^iiy is fdrnished by David. There is nothing in Greece, 

nothing in Rome, nothing in all the West like 

John Von ^ ' ° 

Mueller. David, who selected the God of Israel to sing 

him in higher strains than ever praised the gods of the 
Gentiles. His songs come jfrom the spirit, they sound to the 
depths of the heart, and never in all my Ijfe have I so seen 
God before my eyes." Alexander von Humboldt, who was a 
stranger to the Christian faith in the invisible world and to 
the inward experiences of the Gospel, in his great 

Humboldt. 

work entitled " Cosmos," refers to the remarkably 
truthful representations of nature in Hebrew poetry. He 
notices especially the one hundred and fourth psalm as 
presenting " in itself a picture of the whole w^orld." He 
speaks of the book of Job as being " as graphic in its repre- 
sentations of particular phenomena as it is artistic in the plan 
of the whole didactic composition," and says of the book of 
Ruth that it is " a most artless and inexpressiljly charming 
picture of nature." Goethe says of this same book that it is 
" the loveliest thing in the shape of an epic or an 

Goetbe. 

idyl which has come down to us ;" and of the whole 
volume of inspiration he truthfully testifies, "the Bible be- 
comes more beautiful the more we study it." ^ 

This naturally suggests the analogous thought of the per- 
ils strong sonal influence w^hich the Bible has exercised 

hold upon the 

furmind.^^*^^ over the strongest and most original minds. 
How afl:ecting the tribute paid to it by the unbelieving 

'Hagenbach^s German Eationalism, page 73. History of the Apostollt 
Church, page 166. 



THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 21? 

Rousseau : "This divine book," he says, "the only one T^hich 
is indispensable to the Christian, need only be read with 
reflection to inspire love for its Author, and the most ardent 
di'sire to oley its precepts. Never did virtue speak so sweet 
a language, never was the most profound wisdom expressed 
with so much energy and simplicity. No one can arise 
from its i)erusal without feeling himself better than he was 
before." 

Coleridge, in the remarkable letters which he wrote upon 
the Inspiration of the Bible, which have been the suggestion 
and seed-thought of most of the tracts issued by the Broad 
Church party, but which infinitely transcend them in solidity, 
dignity, richness of thought and expression, and, above all, in 
humble and loving reverence for the volume of revelation, 
savs, " In the Bible there is more that finds me 

, Colend?e"s 

than I have experienced in all other books put i^itt^'s- 
togetlier ; the words of the Bible find me at great&r depths 
of my Imng ; and whatever finds me brings with it an irre- 
sistible evidence of its having proceeded from the Holy 
Spirit." At the close of one of his letters he adds, " The 
fairest flower that ever, clomb up a cottage window is not 
so fair a sight to my eyes as the Bible gleaming through 
the lower panes. Let it but be read, as by such men it 
used to be read, when they came to it as to a ground 
covered with manna — even the bread which the Lord had 
gi^'en his people to eat — where he that gathered much 
had nothing over, and he that gathered little had no 
lack. They gathered eveiy man according to his eating. 
They came to it as to a treasure-house of Scriptures, each 



218 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 

visitai.t taking wliat was precious, and leaving as precious 
for others." 

How afFectiiig the language of Thomas Carlyle, not a too 
ardent friend of its inspiration, when he says, "David's life 
and liistory, as written for us in those psalms of his, I con- 
sider to be the truest emblem ever given of a man's moral 
progress and warfare here below. All earnest souls will ever 
discern in it the faithful struggles of an earnest human soul 
toward what is good and best. Struggle often 

Carlyle's Ian- '^ '^^ 

guage. baffled, down as into an entire wreck, yet a 

struggle never ended ; ever with tears, repentance, true, un- 
conquerable purpose, begun anew.'' Of the book of Job he 
says, " Noble book ; all men's book. It is our first oldest 
statement of the never-ending problem — man's destiny, and 
God's ways with him here in the earth. And all in such fi'ee, 
flowing outlines ; grand in its sincerity, in its simplicity, in 
its epic-melody, and repose of reconcilement. So trtte every 
way, true eye-sight and vision of all things,^ material things 
no less than spiritual ; the horse — hast thou clothed his neck 
with thunder ? he laughs at the shaking of the spear. Sucli 
living likenesses were never since di-awn. Sublime sorrow, 
sublime reconciliation ; oldest choral melody as of the heart 
of mankind ! so soft and great ; as the summer midnight, 
as the world Mith its seas and stars." 

" To all who take up the oracles of God with integrity 
and honesty," says Bishop Butler, " the Bible 

Bishop Butler. 

will ever possess the peculiarity of meeting 
every want, and appeasing every difficulty. In its pages 
every longing of our nature, the most superficial and tlio 



THE WOKD OF GOD OPENED. 219 

most profoun^l, will find satisfaction. Here provision has 
been made alike for the tender susceptibility of the child 
and the mature intellect of manhood ; and whatever shadow 
our imperfect knowledge may allow for the present to rest 
upon certain of its statements, the mourner will still find 
solace in the songs of Zion, and philosophy still drink 
wisdom from the parables of Galilee. It is true that all 
difliculties may not have been removed which the enemies 
of Christianity have started ; nevertheless, the marvelous 
success with which most of them have already been met 
must convince any fair mind that such as still remain are 
not insurmountable, and that here, if anywhere, it befits our 
weakness ' to be thankful and to wait.' " 

" Read the Bible," says Wilberforce, the statesman, in his 
dying hour to a friend ; " let no religious book 

Wilberforce. 

take its place. Through all my perplexities and 
distresses I never read any other book, and I never knew the 
want of any other. It has been my hourly study ; and all 
my knowledge of the doctrines, and all my acquaintance 
with the experience and realities of religion, have been 
derived from the Bible only." 

" If any thing I have ever said or written," said Daniel 
Webster, when commended on a memorable oc- 

' Daniel Web- 

casion for his eloquence, " deserves the feeblest ^^*^^'' 
encomiums of my fellow-countrymen, I have no hesitation in 
declaring that for their partiality I am indebted, solely m- 
debted, to the daily and attentive perusal of the Holy Scrip- 
tures, the source of all true poetry and eloquence, as well as 
of all good and all comfort." 



220 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 

" Thy creatures," said Sir Francis Bacon, " have been my 
books, but thy Scriptures much more. I have 

Bacon. 

sought thee m courts, fields, and gardens, but 1 
have found thee in thy temples." 

" Let others," said John Milton, " dread and shun the 
Scriptures for their darkness ; I shall wish I may 

Milton. . * 

deserve to be reckoned among those who admirt 

and dwell upon them for their clearness." 

" We account," writes Sir Isaac Newton, " the Scrip- 
Newton. 

tures of God to be the most sublime philosophy." 

Thomas, Lord Erskine writes, " My firm belief in the holy 

Gosjjel is by no means owing to the prejudice-o 

Lord lirskine. 

of education, but it arises from the most con- 
tinued reflections of my riper years and understanding. Il 
forms at this moment the great consolation of a life which, 
as a shadow, must pass away." 

Says M. Guizot, the truly great and venerable French 
statesman, in his " Meditations upon the Essence 

Guizot. 

of Christianity," " I have read the sacred volumes 
over and over again ; I have perused them in very different 
dispositions of mind ; at one time studying them as great 
historical documents, at another admiring them as sublime 
works of poetry. I have experienced an extraordinary im- 
pression quite different from either curiosity ur admiration. 
I have felt myself the listener of a language other than that oi 
the chronicler or the poet, and under the influence of a breath 
issuing from other sources than human." 

The quick-wdtted but not over-scrupulous Tal- 

Talleyrand. 

leyrand, expressed his appreciation of the irre- 



THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 221 

Bisixble hold which the Christian Gospel has upon the human 
mind, when consulted by one of the five directors constitut- 
ing the French government in 1797, in reference to suitable 
forms of worship for the new religious system which they 
liad inaugurated, and called Theophilanthropism, (divine 
humanity,) " I have but a single observation," said Talley- 
rand, " to make : Jesus Christ, to found his religion, suffered 
himself to be crucified, and he rose again. You should try 
to do as much." Only four years afterward remarks (ruizot, 
" Theophilanthropism and its apostle, the dream and the 
dreamer, had disappeared from the stage, where they had 
been powerless in influence, barren in consequence." ^ 

Time would fail us to recite the voluntary and heartfelt 
testimonies to the sustaining and inspiring power of the 
Bible which have come from the noblest minds of all ages in 
all Christian lands. 

The Bible has indeed in it, combined in the highest degree, 
what Matthew Arnold quotes from S^^4ft as the two noblest 
of things, sweetness and light. 

What volume of human origin could endure the ordeal of 
constant reading and study, and exhaust a life-time in its 
investigation, supplying until the last increasing stimulation 
and comfort? Thousands of commentators and critical 
scholars tiave devoted their intellectual lives to the study 
of the Holy Scriptures, and have ceased, like the ven- 
erable Bede, at once to work and live ; consecrating 
their last breath to the translation or illustration of the 
Bible 

' Meditations on the Actual State of Christianity. 



222 THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 

Pro£ Calvin Stowe, in his very interesting volume entitled 
'* The Origin and History of the Books of the Bible," refers 
to this line of thought. " Let us bring," he says, " thia 
matter to the test of fact and common sense. These men 
say the Bible is no more inspired than the writings of Homer 
and Shakspeare, and other great men whom God has fitted 
to be the instructors of mankind. Well, then, let us try and 
other books see. Let us for a while use Homer and Shaks- 

tiied in tlie 

Bibte. °^ *^^ speare instead of the Bible, say night and morn- 
ing, in our family prayers. Wlien we meet in the house of 
God for his worship ; in the hour of sickness and calamity 
and distress; at funerals, when all our earthly hopes are 
blighted, and we lay our dearest friends in the grave ; let us 
then, instead of reading the Bible, take a few passages from 
Homer and Shakspeare. How long do you think this would 
last before we should be glad to get back to our Bible 
again V 

A book that has so imbedded itself in all literature and 
science ; that has for nearly two thousand years sustained its 
claim to a divine origin ; that has exercised so marvelous an 
influence over human society, and impressed itself so power- 

book thu ^^^^^y upon the strongest thmkers of every age, 
Uie ^ wx)rid" has little to fear from the hasty generalizations 

literature^ 

cannot die. ^f modern science, or from the passionate attacks 
of a superficial criticism, M^hich exposes its object and animus 
in the irreverent and reckless style in which it has clothed 
itself. To these self-confident modern Gnostics, who demand 
tlie reason why these things should not be believed, we may 
answer as Henry Moore did Southey when he inquired of him, 



THE WORD OF GOD OPENED. 223 

*Wliy am not I qualified to write a biography of John 
Wesley?" "Sir, thou hast nothing to draw with, and the 
well is deep." 

We close this volume with the well-known lines of Walter 
Bi'ott, said to have been written in his Bible : 

Within this awful volume lies 
The mystery of mysteries ; 
1 happiest they of human race, 
To whom our God has given grace 
To hear, to read, to fear, to pray, 
To lift the latch and force the way ; 
But better had they ne'er been bom 
Who read to doubt, or read to scc^o. 



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